She calls out for me with a shriek that yanks me from sleep, scattering my forty winks. She’s sitting up in her cot, arms outstretched. Hold me please. Hair sticking up in tufts on the top of her head, big eyes blinking. I pick her up and cuddle her, but she flaps around in my […]
poems
- parenthood
- ...
These Days
There are days when it feels like I’m swimming upstream, Or treading water just to keep afloat. Hit by waves of guilt For having to split myself in two. And I feel like I’m sinking under the weight of all there is to do. The hard days, the long days, the days when I’m fuelled […]
Now She’s One
A year now. Days that have passed in a blink; like the pages of a book left open in the wind. I cling to the here-and-now, before it’s another do-you-remember-when. Now she is one and he is three. The nights are long but I know this time is brief and oh-so-precious, and I try, in the […]
Crovie
They huddle, gathered in a line, with hunched hills stooped behind. What hardy souls to have placed roots here, almost in the sea itself; a place so subject to the whim of waves, unrelenting on the days when whipped into a rage. Arm in arm this little row of houses perch on the very edge of […]
- motherhood
- ...
Your Great-Grandfather
Yesterday, when you were playing at my feet and happily babbling your constant stream of sounds and half-formed words, I found out that your great-grandfather had died. He was 86. Even though you shared this world for the first year and a half of your life, he didn’t know you. He had an illness that […]
The Game I’ll Always Play
Your sudden cry has pierced an arrow through my dreams (like every other night this week, or so it seems). Bits of shattered images rattle in my head as I shake the weariness that clings to me and stumble to your bed. I don’t know what troubles you at this hour (I don’t think you […]
Friends
We greet each other with a grin (hello), shuffle closer (how are you?) and embrace (so nice to see your face again). ‘ooo’. ‘meh’. ‘mmm’. We build sounds together in a tower – stack them up, click them any way that fits, then rearrange again. String them together and pull them along, take them apart […]
The Move
Recently your world has changed – tipped upside down, then rearranged. Same room but not. Same cot but different ceiling overhead. Same things but in a different space. Confused, you stared – where is this place? The house we left was our first home. You’ll have no memories of the farm next door, the […]
The boy in the cottage at the top of the track
This poem was written to read to you, Isaac, in the style of the poems that really light up your little face at the moment. And the lovely Helen at All At Sea is going to illustrate a copy so I can give it to you for your 1st birthday. I hope you like it […]
A little history – recording of a poem
I was reminded this week that poetry should be spoken – and so, inspired by the beautiful recordings of All at Sea and Storybramble, I recorded this poem, written to Isaac. It is our story, a little history of us.