Our Rebecca Dukesfield Morning
Work? In a Moment of Suspended Time
Ruined Sandstone Trees Winter Smokers
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I wrote this for my niece who was 18 in July 2008
Our Rebecca
Eighteen years have gone by
since 1990 and the day in July
when a little girl came into our lives
Our Rebecca
Now we’re gathered to celebrate
on the occasion of your eighteenth birth date
to raise a glass (with a slice of Vikki’s cake) to
Our Rebecca
As a baby amidst the toys we bought
you were always so determined to walk
and much more than eager to talk
Our Rebecca
In times gone so fast, now seeming far away
we watched you learn, laugh and play
and grow more and more each day
Our Rebecca
Soon, for clothes and make-up toys were set aside
and Beanie Babies made way for real horses to ride
as we saw you take life in your stride
Our Rebecca
Now that you’ve reached eighteen
from the baby and little girl you’ve been
in many places you might be seen
Our Rebecca
For, driving a mini that might be …
On a fairground ride that could be …
On horseback it will probably be …
Our Rebecca
Now you’re going into the world
when life becomes a whirl
you’ll always have a home, you’re still our girl
Our Rebecca
We all have you in mind today
and even when you’ll live away
you’ll be in our thoughts and hearts each day
Our Rebecca
So it just remains for me to say
in my own simple poetic way
‘We wish you a very happy eighteenth birthday’
Our Rebecca
Against the rising murmur of bridge traffic
the sun climbs over chimneys.
Trucks rattle their loads over speed bumps.
The clock ticks away the morning.
Planes roar, dully far overhead,
harshly on their low approach run
while chevrons of migrant geese
go honking towards their estuary grazing.
Cats lounging on backyard walls
eye pigeons picking through scattered remains
left by scavenging nocturnal foxes.
A slight chill, an early reminder of winter,
is cast aside by the last rays of summer,
their heat fading now, yet enough
to have the kitchen door ajar.
Neighbours’ coughs and voices drift in
as the clock chimes
to remind the poet to lay down his pen,
to clear away his breakfast things
and ready himself to join the day.
Are we just a raw material,
the workers?
A commodity
shaped for whatever purpose they have in mind,
the company owners, politicians,
economists, market traders.
Whether they use us in mills, pits or shipyards,
factories or call centres,
we’re herded in
until their decisions go wrong
and they don’t need us any more
and we’re ‘downsized’ into redundancy.
What is true work?
To grow food? Raise a child?
Help the sick, the blighted, the aged?
Or to educate our selves
to demand rights
to demand an equal share,
or at least a fair wage
while we amass their wealth.
Did our belief in our love make us so arrogant
that we felt we had mastery over time?
That we could ignore the on-coming future,
that it would pass us by
and we could look back on its diminishing form,
from our cocoon of suspended time.
Did we believe the day of your departure
could be endlessly postponed?
Or, that it was like a storm,
threatening from afar,
which never hits the temperate climes.
But it did.
It cast us apart,
left us watching each other drift away,
with our cocoon of suspended time shattered,
held together now only in memory,
like our youth captured in photographs,
glanced at occasionally
and relived in a moment of suspended time.
I have re-written this poem several times and still feel it isn't finished. Let me know what you think.
Ruined Sandstone
From Runcorn Hill,
formed of gentle un-dramatic geology,
great blocks were dug,
Earth’s sandstone plundered
in the days when people were driven to construct
monuments to their industry.
Hauled away, shaped and raised to grand designs,
some can still be seen standing tall over Liverpool’s skyline,
higher than they ever did in nature.
Others were taken to Coventry to be raised in similar glory
in the days when people were driven to build
monuments to their faith.
Then came the nightmare from the East,
Coventry levelled as hell held brief dominion on Earth.
The shell of the building remained,
the form of faith still discernable
as the city was raised
in the days when people were driven to destroy
leaving monuments to their evil.
That sandstone edifice built of Cheshire’s hill
lay ruined by man’s fell deeds.
So too the hill lies scarred by his quarrying.
Both suffered from the schemes of men malign and benign,
in the days when people sought to shape and rule the world
leaving monuments to their ideals.
Once I travelled to Easter Island
where lies a great quarry
its stone dug and carved into idols
now fallen and ruined from warfare
thousands of miles from Runcorn or Coventry
there also lie monuments to human failings.
A 'one-take' poem written while relaxing after a day spent tree planting in Rainhill.
Trees
Aromas of Deep Heat rise
Back and limbs ache
Calluses emerge on spade-hardened palms
Fifty trees were given a chance today
Only years will show their success
against foraging, competition, frost, vandals
I did a bit to slow the warming
to keep the seas a little lower
now trees, its down to you
Oak, ash, red-berried rowan
breath life back to the world
an abundance of us are vandalising.
The outside smells like the inside used to.
They are cold, though the warmth inside is clear.
Giving their livers a rest while assaulting their lungs
they gather within their self-made fog,
a gauntlet of shivering addicts to be endured
in a brief moment of passive inhalation
while we gain the fresh air within.