Moonlit  Apples  Press

Dancing

The trees are showing new beauty today –

jiving and jitterbugging

to the music and rhythm of the wind.

Wild and tempestuous.

A temporary cessation of icy blasts

results in stillness.

Just for a while,

until all trunks and branches

unite once again to continue

in the wintry, wondrous dance.

The evergreens’ performance

is outstanding. Suppleness and grace

contrast strongly with the crazy

starkness of deciduous limbs’

more robotic moves. Brown and rigid.

All in all a performance

to be applauded. And I do

as I stand at my window

and marvel.

I’m Not Quite All There

I was eight when I had my tonsils out,

They removed my adenoids too.

I hated my time in hospital –

At such a young age, wouldn’t you?

I remember little of that time.

Big moths around lights in the ceiling

And having to eat toast and ice cream

To facilitate speedier healing.

Next to come out was my uterus.

They took out one ovary too.

He took out the other to check it,

Put it back needing nothing to do.

The next thing was a lung tumour,

Increasing in size, as they do.

He couldn’t ‘get in’ without breaking a rib.

I could hardly believe that was true.

The beastly thing was benign,

I sighed with relief when I knew

But he told me that when he was in there

He removed other suspect bits too.

The latest ‘removal’ was hearty –

A brand new aortic valve – wow!

And the strangest thing I ever heard?

‘Twas from a South American cow!

At the same time I needed a bypass

To the Left Anterior Descending.

To do this they took a good vein from my chest –

Will these surgeries be never ending? 

If a surgeon asks to prise out something new,

I'd feel more than a little bereft.

Politely, I'd say "no thanks very much – 

There's scarcely enough of me left."    

P.S. It’s quite PC to laugh about this,

I promise, ‘cos I do

But the funniest thing of all is this –

Every word is true!

I Hope You Did Not Pass Alone

Almost forty years have flown by

since I saw you last.

Had I known you were going,

I would have stayed.

I could have, should have

stayed.

As I left, your good friend,

Faye, was helping you

drink Ribena from a straw

and you were so weak,

your voice so quiet as you said to her

“I could drink this for ever.”

My heart was bursting

with sadness,

so I left.

I had a call from my father

during that night.

“Yes” was all he said.

So no more sleep that night

and in the morning

all arrangements were made.

The hospital said you

were not alone –

but was that true?

I know, just know

I should have stayed with you.

Cherry Blossom

What could be as welcoming a sight

as a tree full of cherry blossom?

Heralding in the springtime promise

of warm long days forgotten.

Glorious petals of beauty coloured in

just as nature had intended.

A vision to behold and to uplift,

then –  a confetti carpet of contentment.

And lastly, some illustrations -