Four small words

Unbidden it came, a short,
bald statement of fact.

"I like my life" he said.

Four small words with mythical power
to send the serotonins
seeping through the brain,
to fly the flag of self esteem,
and shape a shield
against the daily doubts
that undermine.

But for me, his father,
something in me soared
something sang like the wind sings
when it slings banners of cloud to the sky,
delighting in the shapes assumed.

(c) A McN

Snailed

Tonight we got snailed.

The front step was streaked with straining necks and elongate antennae
stretching forward in slow motion frenzy.

One by one we plucked them up and one by one they lost their nerve,
shrinking back inside their shells.

We tossed them on the lawn.
They rolled and bounced in bald indignity.

Remembering their eager sprint across the steps,
the straining, streamlined pleasure as they flew,
I wished I could have left just one
to skip and dance as only snails can do.

(c) A McN

Missing waves

Missing waves...
missing the slip and slide of the hull
on the hills of silver
shouldering silently beneath me.

Dumb beasts
in ordered herds shepherded by winds;
I love your liquid elegance,
your humble, mindless strength.

I love your ecstacies of surging on the shore,
the lion leap, the raging roar,
the dying shingle songs you sing
when sinking in the sand

leaving the kiss
of holy water
on the land.

(c) A Mc N

Suddenly, in a long involved meeting 250 miles away, I needed the sanity of the sea, the company of waves.

Feed the birds...

(c) A McN

We got several of the braver birds eating from our hands. They were extraordinarily good chips though - GJs chipshop in Blackfield is second to none.

In memory

For no obvious reason
we found ourselves in bright mid-morning light
walking and talking in a mosaic of gravestones
and reading messages
from the living to the dead.

We spoke of life and death,
of rocks and writing,
of families and memories.
In the summer sun
grasshoppers sang
and butterfly ballets performed
in the gap
between graves.

You read the tombstones;
I listened to your observations,
loving the privilege of fatherhood
as I watch you move through
the summer days of childhood where
life still has space for the dreamer
and who you are is more important
than the hoops
through which you jump.

These captured moments I will keep,
etched in the air by words
that simply say

"In loving memory
of a well spent day".

(c) A McN