Province of England/Wales : Poems by Anne Hine rscj
The Weaver
You who hold the filaments of life
in gentle fingers
testing strength and texture
and every coloured hue;
leave the weaving to our ups and downs
there being no haste in what shall be done.
A trust that each thread woven through
will mix and meld and form a whole
that no eye can behold for completion yet to come.
And when all is done each least thread
shines on its own yet is absorbed into the One.
Scarlet Anemones for Nicki and Clare.
These scarlet anemones demand attention:
coal black centres speak dark thoughts –
Like blood splatters from a knifing they
stain the mind murderously.
Life lost through blackness overwhelming
this moment - love stabbed to an
unlovely end; sanity lost
the future ruptured. Reality screams
an emptiness that cannot be filled
except with pain, drag-anchored
by guilt and remorse,
making for an eternal now.
It cannot be undone.
Scarlet these anemones.
Unbox the Neighbours
When I leave the flat
CCTV tracks my moves
knows my going out
and coming in.
Hardly cares as I don't
do drugs or trespass
on the railway line.
Won't be trained on me
when the muggers are about
so not the eye of God
just Big Brother.
Anne downstairs, a living neighbour
pulls in my wheelie bin when I’m late home.
Cries on my shoulder when she meets
her ex in town - married 44 years -
he left her cold for a younger model.
She's not bitter, just sad.
The Town's a Global Village.
Every colour and language to be found.
I pass them going to the shops
chatting in their own tongues.
As yet the sound barrier's intact
I'm not sure how it’s broken.
Mrs Ahmed down the street
takes her physically and mentally
challenged daughter
to the icecream parlour.
We say hello when we meet
she doesn't have much English.
I have a propensity to pigeon hole
the unknown rest: by class or colour
creed or aspiration. Distance kept
is a primitive instinctual law of nature
that reason, wisely, has not quite obliterated
Neighbours - you know their names
and sometimes recognise in their eyes
the God-life that makes us one.
Daisy
Bright heart rejoicer - growing by grim prison wall
you dare to dwell where others fear to stay
you raise my spirits as I make my dreary way
along the path to gate and then electronic door to hell.
I bear your bright imprint of hope within myself
opening gates and doors and doors and gates again
to visit men whose lives lie shattered, in the main
by hopelessness and poverty and hate of self.
A daisy's innocence and sunny smile
has raised my spirits to new life once more
to walk with him and him and him that extra mile
As story told - they know they broke the law
and thus relieved can move with hope renewed
- so much energy one daisy has imbued.
province of England - Wales