More Squirrels in The Elms
- Details
- Written December 2012
Seven tiles selected, to be assembled
Into words on the board where you must follow cue
At right angles on an upright with a cross-bar;
One for aye and five for Kay
And there she goes, rearranging jumbled letters,
Juggling, and first making sense in the mind;
Intent on setting the record straight
Trying this and that in the shuffle,
With paving stones laid out and heading for the corners
With their triple word scores and loud cheers,
Rejoicing as she takes the lead and four more tiles
To spell Ess, cue, eye, are, are, eeh, ell,
So she gets a fifty point Bingo
And I see my name on the board.
Vlll Branch Roads
We’ve chosen the side roadsNarrowing into foliage where the sun strikes through
In the dappling of afternoon shadows,
So we can stop for the high-up view
Surveying what’s below and distant
Stretching to the horizon as the path peters out,
Limited only by our own quadrangle,
Onwards and outwards until the branch stretches
Into a twig that extends to the edge,
And we’re challenged to a bungee-jump
Leap into the unknown without a harness -
Beachy Head survival of the fittest,
Finding another road, for another journey
That makes us prepare to start all over again.
lX Autumn
Mists descend as temperatures plummet
And leaves fall in oranges and browns;
The sun travels low in the sky
As the metabolic rate drops,
Preparing to switch off for winter.
So let’s have one last fling,
Dashing under the blanket of leaves -
Adam and Eve under cover
Nestling down in the burrow,
Tails flapping and paws patting each other
With eyes half-closed and ready for dreams,
Only to find the other half has arrived
With a tray of tea, saying
It’s good morning, not good night.
X Motorways
A, B and M roads feed into each otherAs trunk roads and motorways link up
In overlapping pathways of transmission –
Interlocking networks of communication
Bewailing the loss of rail-track
With Bradshaw’s journeys curtailed,
Not just for a weekend’s engineering
To lop off overhanging branches,
But gone forever with their coal and steam
That puffed pollution over a protected countryside
Over which HGVs and SUVs career,
Banned by a Central London embargo,
Leaving us to clasp the bark of our tree trunk
Frozen by the siren of another ambulance.
X1 Security Alert
Lining the bunker, ready for radiation,
Fallout of terror and a nuclear attack;
MI5 warrens taken over for war,
Defending ourselves against the indefensible
With a few drops of water, and a blanket
For the long lockup after the blast,
The expected Armageddon and countdown to survival;
Chernobyl revisited up staircases to nowhere
And a roundabout on deserted playgrounds,
But all we have is a temperature drop,
A few flakes of snow on the Anderson Shelter
While we’re cuddled up together,
Bedded down like bulbs awaiting spring
When the nucleus opens and bursts into life.
December 2012
After Squirrels in the Elms, Margaret requested yet more verse about her friends in the quadrangle of The Elms - our housing estate in Bromley, Kent.
Image:
Eastern Grey Squirrel - From Wikipaedia - Tom Friedel
The Road to Bishopscourt
- Details
- Written July 2012
Set above Blake’s Mill and the gushing streams
From the rock that gleams under morning dew.
Trudging on Sabbath Day foot down the pavements
Rolled in a pram; bounced over kerbs
To a dedication repeat of the year before
With never a thought of Bishopscourt.
It’s a shorter journey from Pleasant Place
Set among conifers and the trickling brook
That might have flown from Devil’s Peak
Watering the Garden that surrounds a school
And the UCT gifted by imperator colonialis
Where Social Science really becomes an art
Allowing time to dream of Bishopscourt.
It’s a hop, skip and jump from Groote Schuur
Down the corridors to a shared bathroom
And loudspeakers with ‘Doctor du Plessis, Doctor du Plessis.’
When all she wanted was to be back at that window
Gazing across the Flats, imagining the future,
But hearing the call of countries beyond,
Knowing she’d never ever live in Bishopscourt.
Westmoreland Road and Bishop’s Avenue,Then House number seven on Denmark Hill
Making sure floors are red and brasses shine
So there’s never a speck to find the SO’s finger
Up flights of stairs and corridor prayers
Preparing for covenanting on our knees
Giving up all thought of a life in Bishopscourt.
Chikankata was at least on African soil
A nest for infants and home for a family;
Lemons for leprosy, an orchard for mangoes;
Chickens clucking and a mastiff barking
While Easter morning celebrates the rising sun
Across a garden where bream are braaied over embers
As good as they’d do them in Bishopscourt.
193 was stacked on a hill with petrol soaking the clay
So the house slips down while we find rat-runs to 101
And the children ply routes to an Old Palace and Whitgift
Thinking we’d be there forever and ever
Until the bell tolls, signalling break-up and dispersal
As we go our separate ways to far corners
Nowhere near a Bishopscourt.
Refuse rots on Nungambakkam High Road
And open sewers breed cockroaches and rats
While buffaloes and putt-putts trail behind TCW
Around roundabouts this way and that,
And a smiling policeman waves the Ambassador on
Returning from Ritherdon Road to a flooded compound
As we think it would really be better in Bishopscourt.
Brambly Glen had its locked doors and electronic gates
Protecting the residents from unwanted visitors
But allowing Freda in for ironing
While the Camry carried the couple to Braamfontein
Or south to Bloemfontein, dodging the high-jackers
At a hundred and twenty with just a chance
They might yet make it to Bishopscourt.
But now it’s down the 222 and into The Elms
Where the postman arrives on his bike
Finding 4 Hever Gardens has a name,
Carrying messages of joy with the fewest of words
To ‘the lady of the house speaking’
‘A very happy seventieth birthday and many happy returns’
To Bishopscourt.
The road she’s travelled is her own, but also ours
With its twists and turns, and punctuating stops.
It’s a highway shared with fellow-travellers
Nostalgically remembered, and with some longing
To be back where we were with those loved,
Savouring the past, though with always the hope
Of being with them one day in Bishopscourt.
With its twists and turns, and punctuating stops.
It’s a highway shared with fellow-travellers
Nostalgically remembered, and with some longing
To be back where we were with those loved,
Savouring the past, though with always the hope
Of being with them one day in Bishopscourt.
To Margaret, on her birthday, One of her childhood dreams was to live in Bishopscourt.
17th July 2012
Photographs:
University of Cape Town - by courtesy Adrian Frith
William Booth College, Denmark Hill - by courtesy Fan Yang
The Salvation Army International Headquasrters - by courtesy Adrian Pingstone
Squirrels in The Elms
- Details
- Written December 2011
The squirrels are out already; well before us,
Shuffling, dancing, romping, running
In early morning warm-up in time with the wind
And Radio Three pouring its soul through double-glazing,
While another couple go through the motions
Tread-milling their rehab circuit
Of five, four, three, two, one;
Arms akimbo, clap; minds in limbo, wrap
The frozen moment of adrenalin breaking the ice,
Mobilising respiration and heart rates
Enough to make us stop and look,
Just dying to watch those distant cousins
As they leap onto the joys of another branch
And for us, those of another day.
ll. Breakfast TreatFerreting, finding, nibbling, gnawing,
Out for breakfast and a double-dose pile up
Of acorns cracked open and pine cones dissected,
But a pass on the conkers – they’re bonkers for starters.
Just scrape off the bark as you stretch for the bird-seed;
Pick your slot, mate and nick the lot for the plate.
With two-handed action fast-feeding the face,
But still making no impression on the scales
This light-weight expender of energy,
Cheeks stuffed like Popeye’s, with a figure like Olive’s
And still a doggy-bag full for cold storage.
While we skimp on muesli that should have been bird-seed,
But end with a huge stack of pancakes, swimming in syrup
And topped up with strawberries - and cream.
lll. Created to Love
Watching and waiting, silent and searching,
Perched on your pew with hands folded,
Ears pricked up, ready for listening
As though waiting for the sermon
From Saint Francis to Assisi’s animals,
William Booth's to the East End poor,
Billy Graham to a crowded Harringay.
But they’re gone; these days there’s none for the young
So you’re at our window, expecting yours from us,
Bewildered by our own search, reluctantly muted,
So all we offer is a gentle smile
Expressing the joys of simplicity
In finding another needing to love and to be loved.
Oh, sorry – so it’s just a nut you wanted.
lV. Banker’s MateScratching, burrowing, drilling, digging
Underground tunnels turned into vaults,
Ten talents or one – all are buried, stashed cash,
Treasure laid up miles below heaven
Where neither moth nor rust can corrupt,
But all disintegrates into compost and dust
In this HSBC for rodents with zero percent interest
On the acorns of hoarders in lawns without borders;
Making their deposit in strictest confidence
While no-one (but us) is looking
And no-one (not even us) knows how much or where,
So not even they know where to retrieve what’s needed
Until the will is read and all is revealed,
But even then, they find there’s nothing there.
V. Friend or Foe?
Scurrying, scampering, darting, diving,
Tails wagging wildly, furiously flapping messages
Warning of invaders be they canine or feline.
Sirens wail and blue lights flash after 999 calls,
But here squirrel squeaks and semaphore signallers
Upload nature’s codes for downloading,
Surpassing the speed of Twitter
Or the latest of Nokia texting.
While the gang rush to the topmost branch
Out of sight in the Faraway Tree,
Until there’s silence in the close
As he leans the red bike against the trunk
And goes from house to house with the mail.
Relax - it was only the postman, and he’s a friend.
Vl Beauty ParlourScratching, stroking, cleaning, combing
Higgledy-piggledy scalp hairs put in place
As one looks at the other in mutual admiration,
All paws busy with early morning beautification,
Preening on the eight-eleven to Charing Cross -
Lines converging on the facial centre,
Eyebrows curled and whiskers twirled,
Eyelashes weighted with overnight mascara
And the powder brush puffing to smooth it down,
While we admire the red-head on the other branch
Thinking it’s about time we had our hair coloured
To disguise these ageing hairs,
But then sit back, content with who we are,
And what we’ve become. Grey!
January 2012
Margaret requested verse about some of her friends in the quadrangle of The Elms - our housing estate in Bromley, Kent.
See also: More Squirrels in The Elms
Image:
Eastern Grey Squirrel - From Wikipaedia - Tom Friedel
Neighbours
- Details
- Written May 2012
We were just five doors down,
Sharing neighbours, some unknown
As they left with brief case and bowler hat
Headed no doubt for The City.
Unspeaking and self-contained,
Nearby, yet far removed
In their valleys, unexplored
By London Weekend Television.
Knock next door for the poodle
To welcome you with Swiss coffee,
Leckerli and Turkish Delight,
Not only on Christmas Day,
Where the fence might as well have been down,
As we were there so much
That we had to rush home
For Neighbours at 5.30.
Those up the road were different
As Spurgeon baptised theology
In reformation history bristling with conflict.
And truth was covered with controversy
While Luther and Zwingli, who were neighbours
And certainly should have been friends,
Battled it out, head to head,
Before Jackie Chan appeared on screen.
But 203 were the true neighbours
Where even tropical fish felt at home,
And the sounds of a Bach cantata floated
Over the aroma of a Balti curry,
And Norwegian biscuits were shared
Around a Latvian Bible and Copenhagen harbour
When someone called from Toronto -
Far away, yet still a neighbour.
To Marylla Simpson, and the Mitchell family who lived at 203 South Norwood Hill.
Click here to read the story Jesus told to answer the lawyer's question: 'Who is my neighbour?'
May 2012
Turning Ten
- Details
- Written April 2011
Rachael’s made for the ballet floor
Now covered with flowers
And calls for more.
It’s a thud and another – did we hear a scream?
It’s Rachael on the trampoline
Now covered with petals
For the gymnasts’ team.
It’s a clip and a clop in the stable yard;
Rachael is opening a birthday card
Now covered with hay
As she works so hard.
It’s a swish and a swosh as we push her high;
Rachael’s aim is to reach the sky
Now covered with leaves
As she says goodbye
To being nine.
April 2011