If she likes the poems, they are published on her site. Here is my first attempt to get one published.
A swift came careering down my street yesterday,
The raucous noise lifted my spirit in an instant.
From this day, like the day a thawing river breaks free from icy bonds and roars,
The sky is filled with shrieking calls, the swifts are back, life continues.
Our lives are overlaid with wonderful details.
Some experiences occur only as I imagine them.
Trees in Siberia turn golden, their leaves fall in vast drifts.
Millions of leaves, not one witnessed, catching the low sunlight as they fall,
Hardly noticed by bears, they are caught up into holes, buried for the winter.
As swifts return the silence of my street is broken,
I am imagining what stories these travellers report.
I marvel again that returning, beneath them thousands, they continue to choose my street.
Another layer of joy, a sound of affirmation, not beautiful perhaps, but full of promise.
Dry Bread
I choose to take dry bread from you.
You scowl and say this diet won't do,
But its abundance seems to calm,
Doubts our bond will come to harm.
My appetite craves your strong reaction,
Predictable, tough, indigestible emotion.
This is my palette, more secure than rich fare,
Certain to avoid pain, hope, despair.
You tell me our relationship could have much more,
My hunger doubts you, my stomach's not sure.
Better dry bread than smell unobtainable delight,
And realise terrifying anxieties are proved to be right.
From hunger, you begin to understanding my yearning,
This rejecting behaviour with its contradictory meaning.
For my rejection you return kindness instead,
And I find that I take a little butter with my bread.
How Long is a Life?
The spider turns with swift precision; I sit and watch.
Like Robert the Bruce, this is what I am doing.
Circling, rhythmically, patiently, with purpose.
How long have I been here? I can not say, perhaps three days?
I am fixed in this moment.
I'm attending to a new sound.
The glaring light and bright noises are about me.
I take in a curious and over powering smell,
Unsure, I cry. Now soothing words, and gentle rocking.
I live in this moment.
I scan out across the vastness of the savannah.
My cattle mews, and rips at dry stems.
I feel the heat on my head and back, the humming of my heart.
How long have I been here? I can not say.
Time at present has lost its power.
On Seeing the Unseen
I gaze into your unseeing eyes, like light travelling from a distant star,
Coded messages of love, streaming back across the millennia.
One day you will be concious of my devotion,
my constant presence, aware of you current state.
Before time itself was created, my light was journeying towards you.
Inevitable Change
It may seem obvious, but I have discovered that nothing is for ever.
A generous uncle donates his kidney to easy the suffering of a much loved niece,
but it only lasts seven or eight years before she needs a new one.
I marry you, 'till death us do part', and it does.
Leicester's motto: Semper Eadem, always the same.
The only thing that is always the same...is change.
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