Extra Five Minute Poems

I.
The gentle and the unexpected
are what I need
to keep me in the here and now
if I can see you coming
I can leave before you arrive
when asked to jump
I do not honestly say
how high
I just start jumping until
you go away
don't walk down the street
waving banners
and singing songs
I will only close the door
if you want to greet me
simply arrive


II.
I'm doing my best
It is all I can do
Holding onto the thread
Knitting and weaving
in my own way

Someday's I feel connected
Others the beat is off and no
Matter how hard I try the
Rhythm is dissonant,
Disjointed and distant

Oh to be alone again
To slowdown and watch the
Sky as the clouds float by
To listen to the sweet
Melody of the birds as they cry

To sense time unfold
Upon itself into forever
Lost in this magical
Time and place
I am found


III.
It's hard to die
Sometimes we can miss the doorway
Medicalisation can hold us together
Long after we should have gone

It's hard to die
To know the moment
To allow ourselves to let go
To be let go of, gently


IV.
She lay in her bed
asking for daffodil's
the only word she expressed,
daffodil's
my Aunt left for the shops
came back and placed
the flowers by her bed
'daffodils'' she says again
my Aunt retells the story
to the nurse
She wants custard creams
says the nurse
tea and biscuits follow
and my Aunt places
a dunked custard cream
in her mouth
daffodils, she smiles

Simple Spiral

This morning I leisurely past time playing down on the beach. The air was pleasantly warm. The sea was calm. The tide was ever so gradually going out. Tiny waves lapped up onto the pebbles on the sand. I began to collect shells and found myself making this ever so simple labyrinth.

Tonight walking back from dinner the full moon was high in the sky revealing all her majestic beauty. Shining a silvery light to guide us back home.

Circles and spirals every which way I look as a reminder of the cyclical patterns constantly to be found in all forms of life. From the microcosm to the macrocosm. What goes around, comes around.

"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one."

T. S. Eliot - Four Quartets: Little Gidding