Welcome

These poems are the fruit of almost 30 years of occasional writing. They were written as private reflections, or for friends and family. I hadn't intended them for public consumption, but people have told me now and then that they thought I should share them, so I have. I shall add new poems if and when I write them, though a lot of my words tend to go into sermons these days!
If you find something you like and find helpful, you are welcome to use it and share it, but please make sure my name stays attached to it.
The poems are posted in no particular order, but the labels - click on links below - should help you find poems on various themes.
There are also separate pages on this blog containing links to music composed by my husband, Philip, and to Christmas stories which I have told here at Seal in place of sermons on Christmas Day.

Monday 6 June 2016

You and I


You, startled in your fishbowl crib,*
and I,
washed down and lain between cool sheets
after the sweat and blood of your arrival
watch each other.

Left alone,
(- we were the only ones last night
committing miracles -)
we find ourselves fixed in conspiratorial surprise,
gazing, as if,
for all that we shared
nine months swelling expectation
this was somehow not what we expected.

Most of all,
(and strange!)
we never thought
the world would now be
quite so different.
I,
transformed from isolated independence
find I am become the wellspring of the future,
tied through time and over oceans to the whole of life. 
You,
opening a space, and love and grief, where there were none,
forcing your way into the fabric of existence
have enlarged the universe
with your small, growing self,

Your dreams did not encompass change
and mine were limited to tiny hands and nappies
yet between us
we have changed the world.

  
July 92
For Michael


*In case you aren’t familiar with maternity wards , the cribs are made of transparent plastic – easy to see the baby, and easy to clean I suppose. But they really look like fishbowls!


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