Friday 26 April 2013

Garden Ode 1



The two year olds chase the butterflies.  
They don’t tire in their pursuit.
They love to watch the birds or even planes cross vision’s landscape
Is it the same for all?  The fascination of flight? 
Imagine you’re a bird in flight, face to the wind 

That’s why they have a beak 
A bird’s head is much like the shape of a jet or a rocket or even a plane.  
Is that what we learnt from birds?   
To minimise the point of contact? 
Yet a beak is sharp and pointed for their foraging and feeding, is it not?
We envy their agility, their nimbleness, their speed 
And even children in their butterfly dance 
Laugh the self-deprecating laugh of the clumsy 
But the laughter is joyous too 
Reveling in the strength of their limbs 
The resistance of air as they force through it 
Striving to overcome their inelegance
Children have faith in their bodies
They almost believe they can fly, as many 
Do try...

The fickleness of birds alights here and then there
Hedonistic? Or is there purpose to their travels?
Is theirs a life of need 
like the millions of earthbound flesh who have no time for indulgence?  
Their days are work filled 
to gather or purchase enough food for succour for sustenance
for subsistence.

The other animals of our planet are like our children.  
A lot of them do have time on their hands 
(They're time unaware  
without a care)
To sit on a telephone wire 
to receive an exhilirating and expansive view of the world
in its proximity 
A bird's eye view
not only to spy possible prey in their sights 
Do they sit feeling the thrill 
of being able to balance on such a fine foothold?
Sing purely because 
it is joyous to do so
Then fly to a neighbouring tree for a sampling of afternoon delights?
Red berries to intoxicate 
and give full throat to those songs of joy and fraternity 
as they welcome their peers to the party 
and maybe have a jostle or two for the spoils.

Here we are 
stuck in the world of work 
of time keeping, of worry and guilt 
for the waste of hours
Spent in daydream 
of the play of children and animals.


Monday 15 April 2013

Smoking


Ode to ‘The Smoke’

Do you want to die?
Think you’re invincible?
The devil smoke
Strong mind n body revoke
Ravaging organs
For the next high

Relax Mellow Yellow
Take the edge off anxiety
Sing about the ‘bacco
That we love and hate
We want to use you, abuse you, deny you and seduce you
The devil lover wreaking havoc
Want you coursing through my veins

Poisoning our bodies
We must hate ourselves
For love would not pollute
But substitute
A walk for a drag, skip for a hit, run for a gun
Depression acute
Might get a gun and shoot

Bad breath broke
Picture this
Running down the street in exotic places
Reaching the top of mounts and staircases
Buying bikes, pleasures and treasures invoke
Yet we still want the devil smoke.












What happened to
The Body’s a Temple?
Getting there slowly
Which one will work?
Weak as piss
Yeah deserve the dis
I need to be locked up
on a desert island
Don’t pollute
The air of my children
Put me under the spell
Cos I can’t do it myself.






Parenting – or in my case, Grandparenting.


I have just read a new post on Soul Stories Raising Holistic Children which included a link to a TedX video on Hack Schooling which was very good.

This made me think of the Michael Parkinson Masterclass  I watched on TV over the weekend and found it very entertaining and informative although I have never read Michael Morpurgo’s books.  I have an immense interest in children and have often thought of trying to write a children’s book.

Morpurgo’s attitude was that he writes for himself.  Never talk down to anybody.  Children are not too young to learn about global and universal issues such as loss and pain and loneliness and inhumanity and a novel is an ideal way to explore these issues for children.  I presume he is talking about 8 to 14 sort of age group as that is what I would think appropriate. The program also showed footage of how puppets were used for the stage production of “The War Horse” which was fascinating.
This made me think of a book I bought some time ago that I have only half-read.  I’m not quite sure why – just busy and forgot about it probably. Anyway the book is called "Too safe for their own good" - How risk and responsibility help teens thrive,  by Michael Unger, PhD, who, I have just discovered, is now on Facebook.

I see it as my role to contribute something valuable to the lives of my grandchildren. Parents are often too busy to find and read all this interesting and valuable information, let alone utilise in their own busy lives.  My daughter, for example, is 28.  She has 5 children under 8 and both she and her husband are university students.  When my own children were young, I tried very hard to be a good parent and provide a range of opportunities and experiences for them.  We also read each night until they were able to read books by themselves.  One of my friends, I found out, read together with her children all through primary school, which really fostered a love of books.  My children hate to read.  I obviously missed the ball on that one.

Thinking back to my own childhood, I can’t remember my parents ever playing with me or reading to me except for these exceptions.  The whole family used to play Monopoly together once a week for a while.  When swimming, Dad would give me turtle rides where I would hang round his neck while he swam underwater, and once when I was sick with some childhood illness, Mum would read ”Bush Holiday” to me.  The only books I remember loving were about “Tim” by Edward Ardizzone.  I must have read all the Secret Seven’s and Famous Five’s though as the boys next door and I would always be pretending we were them and building cubbyhouses, etc.  It was a different time then.  We were left to our own devices mostly, to create our own fun.