Morning walk. Ten o’clock. She, meaning Teah the dog, jumps down from the bed and stands hopefully in the doorway. “Time for my second walk, for that cappuccino, so I can see what’s going on in the street. Besides which I like Anthony and the others who come sit outside the Blue Bar. I mightContinue reading “Teah at Blue Bar”
Category Archives: Poems
Masks
Red, white and blue. Or maybe red, green and white. Or any combination you like. In whatever country you like. Here in Orvieto, Italy, masks are mandatory. If you forget to equip yourself when leaving the house, you suddenly realize you’ve gone out half-dressed, without your trousers. So you stop and buy another one orContinue reading “Masks”
What’s in a Name
Give me a name and let me tell you what it stands for. A chair is simply a chair. A daffodil just that. But say Wordsworth and it’s daffodils and lake and wind. Say Shakespeare and it’s to be or not to be and the shoemaker’s sole. Robert Burns is a wee timorous mouse RobertContinue reading “What’s in a Name”
For Sally’s Grandmother
Written for Sally’s grandmother around 20 years ago “Suddenly there was no more pain. It just stopped. Like when one stops breathing all of a sudden. For a moment, without the pain, she felt lost. So blessedly unaware of the body she had become accustomed to in the long years in which it had beenContinue reading “For Sally’s Grandmother”
Corner of a Room
Captured on the film of memory a corner of a room. Time-bleached photographs are ranged askew against a wall of ghostly patterned stripes. Shadows from the past stare out, pensive self-conscious unawares. A print of a saint, hands clasped in submission hoping for an answer to his prayers, holds the place of honor. The smallContinue reading “Corner of a Room”
Tea For Two On Tuesdays
A great title. Heralding a friendship. One of those some people say can’t happen. Why? Well because I’m over 90. One doesn’t make new friends after a certain age I was told. If I were less of a lady, I’d say Bull… I made new friends when I was 70, and when I was 80.Continue reading “Tea For Two On Tuesdays”
Hats
November 17, 2019 THE HAT THAT GOT AWAY It was a light brown fedora type hat.Worn to protect its wearer from the rain.Worn because the wearer no longer had that mass of lustrous hair of 50 years ago. On her way along the cliff to the elevator and well aware that the wind would loveContinue reading “Hats”
Embrace The World
The child on the empty beach runs, arms outstretched, to embrace a ball. Her past lies there behind herfor she has felt her mother’s cheek warm against hershas heard her mother sing a ballad at dusk. The child on the empty beach with arms outstretched is running with the wind to embrace the world.
A Mother and Her Child
A mother and her child. I try to decipher her gaze and, entranced, have fallen under her spell.She could be a Madonna, holding a babe in swaddling clothes, safe inits mother’s arms and not yet aware of the world outside. What are those eyes and that enigmatic smile that lingers on her lipstrying to tellContinue reading “A Mother and Her Child”
Moving 2018
I wander through the rooms as if I were a ghost choosing this and that. What to take, what to leave what I will need, what holds meaning. But to me alone and not to those who follow. A book – read yesterday to read perhaps tomorrow. A book – the small child kept throughoutContinue reading “Moving 2018”