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!"