New Year 2014 (19/12/13)

The years are interchanging once again.
The one that had been new is reckoned old,
And as it ends another year begins
Whose youthful bloom will fade to see it age.

This is the cycle humans have devised
From nature's rhythms matched to their own needs
So as to mark the passage of brief lives
And lend a calming order to a stream
In which event would follow on event
Without a structure to direct affairs.

So thus we profit from inventive skills
And set about achievement of our goals,
Though yet we need the advent of good luck,
And wish good fortune still upon ourselves.

Christmas 2013 (19/12/13)

Twelve months have run their course to Christmas day
When now at Rancho Bauer the company
Are gathered to enjoy and celebrate
Familial affections that dictate
How, in the hustle of our modern life,
We recognise the profit we derive
From ties inherited and bonds avowed
By whose kind agency we are endowed
With love, which in its ministry of care
Maintains the fabric of the life we share.

The long day closes (20-23/12/13)

Each day that starts as Sol asserts his grip,
Warming the Earth and all that lives below
As he ascends to culminate then dip,
Will end in darkness when he leaves down low.

Live, love and cherish well those precious lives
Which rank above the tenure of your own -
That is the spirit's urge, which takes and gives
To reach in sum beyond itself alone.

So in the course of mounting up the years,
And taking stock of what of note has passed,
We find as reconciliation nears
A balance looms wherever eye is cast.

As mind advances through its consciousness
The soul approaches what it must address.







 

Scrabble King (23 Dec 2013)

A master of the game appears
To claim his rank of just esteem.
Behind are gone the prentice years.
Ahead, instead, a waking dream
Takes shape - a vision of renown
Acquired by practice of high art
Deployed to gain the golden crown
So prized by all who play their  part.

We relish at the Scrabble board
A former tyro who has scored,
By dint of skill, where few have soared,
Proving himself a timely lord.  

This be the way (17 Dec 2013)

Under the aspect of eternity
An age of any length must surely end.
We seek to banish our timidity,
To gather fortitude enough to fend.

So any end must constitute but one
Of many long surpassed upon our way,
That winding path we dread to tread alone,
Being conscious that we never can gainsay

That troubles of such sort we must surmount
As will put all our courage to the test
To pass through dangers of whatever count
By first adopting of all ways the best.

I pray you opt to spend an age with me
To venture forward, where no eye can see.

Companion faithful (Dec 14, 2013)

A silent ghostly presence haunts the house,
Inhabits each and every room by turns.
Wherever human footprints leave their trace
The quadrupedal  pawmarks follow up
While Darla keeps her vigil right on track
As soundless shadow constantly on guard

Getting together (8 Dec 2013)

How does a young man undertake his quest
To find a love to cherish for a life -
By travelling the world in fervid zest,
Observing how the others take a wife.

The modern girl of finest taste must take
 Good care in optimising what is sought,
By keeping all her senses wide awake
And spying what's in orbit to be caught.

And what attraction may there  then ensue
Of strength enough that friendship will be sure -
Why, that amalgam of affection true
Which sometime, often, ever will endure.

Yet what's to really know and savour is
How fateful outcomes issue from a kiss.

Wedding in London

A wedding took fair place in London town,
And all of those who, blessed by fortune, came
Will cherish in their hearts its matchless flame
Which as it played brought joy to London town.

Summer foray by wheelchair

In Whitstable of just renown
Your hospitality was fun.
Our fine repast being wine-washed down,
I ventured to be ably spun
Beside the windy pebbled beach
Past oyster bar and sailing smack.
Then through the winding streets, where each
Historic feature can bring back
A past that civic pride holds dear
And keeps alive from year to year.

Reflections from a drop

I saw a raindrop glitter in the Sun,
So like a pearl from that endearing ear
Dependant, sparkling, swaying in response
In concert with the movements of a life
Of unexampled truthfulness of quest
To find the genuine and scorn the rest.

A presence still

Amidst the hills of fond remembered days
I sense your presence by me where we were
Accustomed to enjoy the summer's lapse
Beneath the skylark dome of buoyant clouds.

Your presence is in me, not on the hill,
Still less at home when, waking from a doze,
Half conscious in the passing of the night,
I turn to where you cannot be.

The conversations that remained unheld
Will never have the option to begin; 
So much was still deserving to be said
When time's thin trickle swelled into a flood
That tore apart the fabric we had made,
But left the power of memory to mend.

Prompted by an admonitory lemur on a birthday card

Best take your cue from nature - have a break,
No need to court commotion for its sake.
The lemurs show how talented they are -
They hasten slowly, yet progress so far,
While not forgetting that it's just as sound
To start to party when the time comes round!

Coombe Hill

Coombe Hill of lofty fame and far-flung view,
How in departing summer now you glow
Beneath a patchwork sky of white and blue,
And lend to us your slopes to come and go,
Fly high our kites or find a picnic site
Or take your tracks toward the Monument
Erected to recall an old dissent
When war was used as arbiter of right.

You did not ask for us to use you so,
Nor yet decline to let us come and go.
You do not judge - where we now praise now scold -
Instead being ever ready to enfold.

To Amy

To Amy may this little rhyme
Arrive in good, propitious time
To say we're sure our candidate
Will garner her certificate
By stalwartly defending what
Her thesis sanctions or does not
And, with its reasoning innate,
Delivers our licentiate

Homecoming

We brought you home to us from hospital
In hope to have some time, however short,
To say goodbye with heartfelt words of love -
But swiftly did those hours we'd fancied days
Elapse before the waning of that link
Which kept communication possible
Transpired, to be succeeded by a sleep
In which no pain afflicts the slumbering soul
So easefully allowed to near its end.
The waiting and the hoping are so hard
To undergo before their term expires.

Suffer no more

We sit beside you through the night
With hope you sleep in peace.
We cannot know if you feel fright -
Please bless us and release
That vital hold which keeps you here
Long past the time to go.
Oh, listen to our pleas, My Dear,
And cease to linger so.
You will not thus abandon us,
Nor shall we lose you whole -
Let go the world, renounce its fuss,
Be gentle on your soul.

Farewell with gratitude

Farewell, Dear Heart, who came into my life
As daughter, sister, mother, peerless wife,
And now depart, yet always shall remain
Companion tireless, source of untold gain.

The journeys of our wedded life forged ways
To let remembrance wake their vibrant days.
Though we no more shall fondly walk together,
What once we shared shall stay intact forever.

You shall not go in darkness from our side,
The light you brought us ever will abide.
So as you take your leave to where toils cease
Our mourning and our grief will bring us peace.



Our last celebration

The time of transformation has arrived
As we, in grieving, turn our hearts to you
And hold ourselves in readiness to meet
The last injunctions of your cherished will.

Fire shall have rendered us your ash to take
In company to where your dear hills rise,
And on the winding paths you loved to roam
You shall be scattered joyfully at home.



Tribute

A last devoted tribute now we pay
To one who loved far more than words can say.
There is an absence in the world we know
But one dear presence that will never go
From out our hearts or from this chosen wood
Where now we leave your ashes as we should.


Valediction

One verse the more - the last - to write
To those who tarry in the light:
We all must venture into night -
Keep, then, a caring outlook bright!


Now and forever

Those final days are gone, those days we struggled to endure,
And with their passing we regain our picture of you whole.
The time through which we grieve and mourn will in its course ensure
We find the strength to let you go, yet treasure your dear soul.

It needs to be said

With pulsing puffs between the lips that travel to the ear
We tell our loved ones they are loved, we tell them they are dear.
How often we should use our tongue to motivate the air -
That noble gas, our messenger - to say how much we care,
To say there is a place apart forever in our heart
From out the depth of which each day our words of love depart
To reach the destination where  an ear is wide awake
To hear those living breaths announce affection for its sake.

The maintenance of wing

There is a need in a machine which calls
For others to ensure it does as bid.
On breakdown, it inevitably falls
To them to find out where the faults are hid
They put them right, though leaving still one thing
That each machine requires to be of use -
And this recalls the maintenance of wing,
Which all birds must perform, without excuse.

The owl who hunts does not do so unless
She keeps her wings fine-tuned at flying pitch -
An irksome burr the more, a preening less
Is greater far than any minor glitch,
For it may mean the losing of a prey,
Or cause control to falter in the air,
Spelling the end of peerless mastery,
Bringing her crashing down near danger's lair.

The vital toil the owl performs each day
Cannot be done by proxy for her sake.
Her maintenance of wing points us the way
That brute machines necessitate we take.

Little Miss "Not Right"

Grave Ellie in her clever way
Is watching, through the length of day,
Her Mummy's each and every move
To see just where she must improve,
So when she spots a blatant error -
Why, then, our little toddling terror
Announces in her sternest voice
Rejection of an ill-made choice.

The fun of this begins to pall
For Mummy, who's on constant call
And turns to tell her daughter dear
That she no longer wants to hear -
As she has heard for far too long -
How everything she does is wrong.

Then comes at once the answer bright:
"But, MummyDearest, you're not right!"

No higher duty

Of all the stars, there is but one, the Sun,
Where life is known to flourish and survive.
Of all the species present on the Earth,
Mankind alone is held to be aware,
Though other mammals, too, may in their way
Have consciousness that centres in themselves.

What seems to be unique to man consists
In being free to to think beyond himself,
But how can he responsibly control
The knowledge that, one day, may spell his end?
And would he leave the world a better place
Without such self-destruction on its face?

Marlow spring

Now Marlow wakes to springtime's swelling sound,
The town adopts a spirit suited more
To birdsong and to blossoms that abound
As people gently stroll by Thames's shore,
In hues adapted to the weather's change,
At last released from winter's numbing gloom,
And in their hearts despondency exchange
For cheerfulness that floods through nature's room.

The hill

There is a slope whereon each is the ibex in its prime,
Alert in resolution and the the master of the climb,
Or like the bounding hare that twists and fleetly turns away,
At home among the tufts and clumps, survivor of the day.

Though culminating high above, resplendent of its kind,
It cannot be the slope is always upwardly inclined,
Its bulk has lasted aeons on an ageless fundament
And those who reach its summit will come down from where they went.

A hill will stand while generations replicate and grow,
And witness from its vantage how the people come and go.

Leveson revised

They called an enquiry and promised to do
Whatever was sanctioned - and speedily, too!
But, now the proposals are there to be seen,
They're changing their tune and involving the queen.

It seems a Royal Charter's the answer they seek
To pander to power and abandon the weak.
How strange  to find latterly that they can be
At home in the house of that pink BBC.

Fantasy of a dream

Once upon a lullaby
I fell asleep - so tired was I! -
And, dreaming, floated in the air,
Commanding vistas everywhere.

Such fun , to view what others do
When you see them, not so they you!
So rare and excellent a way
To spend a  happy holiday
Must surely have been given birth
By someone with a sense of mirth.

I felt my new ability
Would last for all eternity,
That I would meet the lark in flight
Close by the Sun,in regions bright.
But in a while I lost the guile
Of how to fly aloft in style,
So, with a final glance around,
I came to ground without a sound.
  

Together

Those days of youth unbound when life was sweet,
Those nights of dancing to the urgent beat,
Those years of travel to exotic lands
Beneath the burning Sun above the sands,
While off the the beach the ocean's mighty swell
Divulged a violence more than words could tell,
Those hours of splendour spent below the waves
In weightless wonder, deep in coral caves,
And afterwards the journeys under sail
In gentle zephyr or in raging gale,
And then the lengthy rambles over hills
Where cloud the slope envelops as it chills -
Such are the memories we jointly share
That chart the progress of a happy pair.

The last dance

Movement in harmony, soul of the dance,
Fashioned to favour  and further romance.
Take to the  floor in a flurry of haste,
Lest the last dying strains pass into waste.
Cherish the moment that ever will be.
Lodged in the core of our joint memory.

Spring

How happily the days are lengthening,
As spring pries open winter's  balefull grip.
What has been dark of night now is bright morn,
And birds that sang concealed flute full in light.

Shy buds assume a confidence they lacked
And paint the trees and shrubs in artful hues,
While lovers learn from nature's urgent way
To reawake what has been plunged in sleep.

Green Flash

"Green Flash of sailor's lore,
What motivates your flame?
Why is it once you came,
And now return no more?"

Thus the legend. What the facts?
Could there be a force which acts?

With sea becalmed beneath a cloudless sky,
A rarity is seen, though none knows why.
To mariners it is the strangest thing
The vaulted dome before their eyes may bring.

Amongst the windblown salts with years afloat
The topic merits comment hour on hour.
So fleetingly evinced when it occurs,
It draws upon itself the deepest doubts.
Is it a phantom, conjured by a mind
Confused and tired as Sun and water meet,
Which, with the sinking of the the solar limb,
Calls forth an intense burst of short-lived green
That seems to hang an instant where the straight
Horizon severs sky from placid sea?

As someone with  a weather watcher's eye,
I have the habit to observe the sky -
So let me briefly say what I have seen
Concerning water jugs and flashes green.

Upon the Cuban shore at close of day
I saw the Sun blink verdantly to sleep
Beneath the resting waters calmly deep
From where I sat in hope to be amazed.
It was a moment so unique in kind
As never can be banished from my mind.
And so it seemed a truth had been confirmed
That could no longer see itself impugned.
And yet, on coming home I met with doubt
When, as I watched my water jug boil up
Where it was standing in a darkenend space,
To my distress I saw that Cuban gleam
Which I had thought a rare exotic gem.
Yet gem it may well be, for all of this,
Since not all jugs produce the same effect.

So keep your eyes alert, should such seem just,
And you may see the Green Flash too, I trust.
 

Image and story

Thank you for the pictures from afar,
Showing how you prosper where you are.
How well you dally there, with Sol supreme
Bringing bounty with his burnished beam!

Handsome hull upon a silken sea,
Moored at leasure where you choose to be,
Till fancy spies an isle of green and white,
And prompts the latent wanderlust to bite.

So, as you sail from  port to port at will,
We share with you the pleasure and the thrill -
Happy faces sunning on the beach,
From where vistas vanish out of reach.
Stately vessels, skimming yachts abound,
Verdant backdrops feature in the round,
And all these gems show how you follow
A path renewed with each new morrow
In which the mariner may choose to stay,
Or else weigh anchor and be underway.

Thus let there always be such splendid days
To pass, when tender  eyes with lovelight gaze.

There must be change

A small town reels in disbelief and pain,
A nation wrestles with an aim that's plain:
To stop more innocents from being slain.

After this portent of a future bleak
In which a violent strength destroys the weak
And helpless, who now crave the cure all seek,

Something must be done, action must ensue,
Or many will be added to the few
In leaving life as none should have to do.

So it is done

I wrote a story that I did not know,
I had no choice, I simply let it flow.
It was a story of a quest for love,
A true companion im my every hour.

It is the story that we all must write,
Though  we may lack the words to tell it whole.
There are so many loves a soul must meet
Before they are conflated at the end.

Fish and bird

Sleek minnow on the river bed,
You do not know how chicks are fed.
Kingfisher parents both must strive
To keep their common brood alive,

So through the day each one will fly
To perch upon a branch and spy
Where you are hanging in the flow,
Then plummet down to strike their blow.

The ever-present past

A moth once setttled, plump and brown, upon my coat
As drizzle in a garden fell so many years ago.
And when, as boy, I chanced to glance and saw her on my chest
Her silent presence brought strange fright that had not touched me as
Her dampened wings were folded when she fluttered down to rest.

Too hastily I brushed her off and saw, as she took flight,
What beauty I had banished by an unconsidered act.
Too soon she vanished midst the ranks of raspberry bushes thick.
Too late and vainly did I seek to catch a moment gone.
How silent was the air around while weightless droplets fell
Upon the dripping leaves through which the ripening berries peeped.

Why does this timeless memory stay with me to this day?
Why will it without doubt retain its  charm and potency? 

What goes around...

The subtle play of light upon a fading garden wall,
The smell of fallen apples lying damp among the grass:
All this has been, is now, and will recur for evermore -
The new perfoms its role as repetition of the old.

The apple and the tree are one as evolution rolls,
No tree without the apple, and no apple without tree:
Stability of change allows succession in its turn,
While novel patterns flicker fleet across a garden wall.

The sea, the boat, adventure call

A far marina sparkles in the Sun,
An absent skipper hastens there to sail,
"Wereda's" patience soon will reap reward
And Trinidad rejoice to see once more
Her stately presence on the Carib Main.

Long months of separation near their end,
The sailor's soul now harkens to the sea,
Whose Siren call as ever draws him off,
Away from happy home, to joy on board.

So does the bond that cannot be undone
Require to be renewed, its strength made good,
Until it can allow love's haven leave
To host the next reunion of true hearts.

Sail away

I

A talented sailor from Houston
Attempted to sail with his boots on.
They filled up with sea
As far as his knee
And sank that poor sailor from Houston.

II

A talented sailor from Houston
Declined to set sail with his boots on.
He found his approach
No storm could encroach,
Which won him renown throughout Houston.