Never Quite Forgotten

Never quite forgotten,

loving mem’ries,

Drift and sift in shadow’d

halls of mind,

Replaying as the tunes

of ancient hist’ry,

Recaptured round

the campfires left behind,

Smok’d in peat,

and perfum’d with the past tense,

Indelible on senses,

ink’d in blood,

Never quite forgotten,

treasur’d always,

Give and take, remembered consolation,

Never quite forgotten gifts of love.

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Recalled with Thanks

We don’t do Thanksgiving here in Scotland. But we do do giving thanks. (That doesn’t sound right…do do). Anyway…

Today I recollect the day of my mum’s death.

Cheery, I know. But it is, in many ways, because I get to give thanks to her for being my mum, for being who she was and who she still is, living on in my mind and heart.

I get to remember her and all the people I love because that was what she was all about.

She and my dad. Fourteen days from now I get to especially remember him all over again.

I get to think about what mattered to them and how they went about it in their everydayness. I can do that anytime, I know. But today makes me reflect more fully on all that I have to be thankful for, past, present and future.

And because I’m thankful for so many wonderful people in my life and the love that surrounds me I want to pass it on.

Thank you to all who read these pages. And thank you to all my beautiful guests who carried this blog for the month of November. I really struggle to find words of apt appreciation. You showed love and I love you for it.

Thank you all.x

 

Matins’ Bell

‘I’m tired now’, he said, by light of darkness,

mumbled into night his waking thoughts,

a plaintive sort of fatigued exaltation,

no defeat but crushed by earthly knocks.

A glimmer in the darkness listened keenly,

spluttered into life to ease his pain,

descended on his forehead as he struggled

pasting joys in desiccated pains.

In dreams he saw a dancer up above him,

then dancing on the parquet floor of hairless pate

and, in the gentle tapping of her footsteps,

he traversed back in time through all life’s gates.

To childhood days that merged with church’s bell ring

and infant hands so soft within his grasp,

sunshine holidays and harder times when

they’d pulled in belts and wondered if, perhaps,

the work and want, the endless, restless passage,

fraught with cares and doing all he could

were worth the love of all that gathered round him.

He sighed in sleep and smiled at all the good.

The dancer danced and then lay flat upon him,

impressed herself, as light, into his mind,

bestowed the recollected visions of his voyage

and whispered tunes he’d carried deep inside.

His breathing eased and slowed to mellow movements,

shallow sighs belied the deeper well,

exchange of life, the price became apparent,

sleep on in peace or ring aged matins bell.

Light maintained its presence in his mindset,

centred on his soul when he awoke,

he smiled at love that lay asleep beside him

and whispered thanks to angels when they spoke.

Echoes Of A Voice

Echoes of a voice

From distant days

Relive the moments

 

Reminders

Of times past

But not forgotten

 

Like a song

Once played

On repeat

 

Again

The tune recalls

With rhythm

 

And melody

But mostly

Words

 

And heartbeat

Quickens

In time

 

A tuneful

And timeless

Love

 

Awakened

By echoes

Of a voice.