As a beginner learning photography I take great delight in capturing mother nature and the varied faces of her seasons dramatically. Every picture tells a story through my own interpretations and interests, and my style tends to dwell on the colourful patterns and dancing lights and shadows that create an impact and awaken one’s spirits…
© Jeannette D’Souza
Morning skies unveil the Master Artisan’s hand
Swooping through boughs of mellow auburn bands
From His palette emerge enigmatic colours subtle and bold
Mingling in vivid blue strokes that melt into gold!
A burst of radiance through frosty shades He brings
In articulated nuances sprinkling hues over meadows and fields
They charm those feathered delights to sing in lilts!
Thus creating a new season from winter into spring!
No measures up He holds as skies and seas behold
A transformation in earth’s seasons from shades into light
With such ubiquitous harmony do all elements combine,
When His magnanimous vision completes the intended design!
How could one follow the divine Artist’s clan…
For the universe is His easel and time follows His command
Yet His faithful love provides the talents to unwaveringly stand,
So as to discern the purpose of the eternal Artist’s plan!
Jeannette D’Souza 1/2/2025
© Jeannette D’Souza | Copyright 2025 | jdsouza.uk
© Jeannette D’Souza
Christmas seems near when salubrious sights appear
In mingling tones of festivity and the season’s goodwill cheer
They sprightly unwrap those nostalgic moments of Yuletides far gone
With glowing streamers outside homes and over wreaths that linger on…
Christmas seems near when empty spaces begin to sparkle
In tones of gold, green and red silhouettes that warmly twinkle
With shoppers stopping by to hear the merry caroller’s jingle
Here comes Santa’s sleigh inviting every child in jollity’s chuckles!
Christmas seems nearer when children huddle around in wondrous solace
Gathering by cribs where a manger awaits an infant’s paltry space!
Yet their other kind of awaiting makes Santa’s visit seem farther
When wrapped pressies from under trees watch their amused glimmer…
Christmas seems dearer when genuine-giving outweighs receiving
And kindness and compassion never run out of style to light up smiles
Like a halo they miraculously fill a soul’s forlorn plight
With bliss overrun!, for it is Christmas’ intended design
Christmas is here when we hear the St Mary’s bells ringing
Inviting us in joyful voices to the eve’s ceremonial keeping…
We open the Gloria in exalted spirits to hail the new born sweet!
And after service communities gather conveying jubilant wishes!!
And finally Christmas Day is here…and families unite with cheery hearts kindled
There is music and warm laughter and also time for comfy snuggles
Everything follows this sole merriment rhythm of festive bubbles
Toasting to exuberant festivities, to hearty meals and cracking riddles!!
Jeannette D’Souza 24/12/2024
© Jeannette D’Souza | Copyright 2024 | jdsouza.uk
© Jeannette D’Souza
The twirling Jasmines revived in awe
Peeping up to the swirling of the winds
They anticipated a soothing downpour
From the balmy clouds loftily gathering
Gulmohars stood tall with boughs opening wide
While Sita-Ashoka brushed aside its stays
In prep the Champak lowered its spirited blossoms,
Offering me scents in the rapture of its sways
The air felt warmer and cuckoos sang peculiarly
They tweeted tuneful tones of the advancing rains
Sooner feathery feet collated in thrilling euphoria
Predicting a splendid monsoon’s display to gain
Now the skies went deeper and sombre,
Majestically summoning a bright celestial flash
And at the crack of a reverberating thunder
They unfurled into a harmonious sprightly bash!
They poured in mellowness over exuberant fanning peacocks
Over sweet-scented Indian lilies and Indigo bays
Welcoming all flora and fauna into a festive alliance
In this dazzling dance of monsoon days!
At this sparkling flurry of the rain
I pranced like a child into memories’ lane
Recalling a girl in pigtails capering homeward
To the playful beat of monsoon games
When it poured it poured, over tiled rooftops and pedlar’s carts
Over vibrant raincoats that all looked so surreal
And would I start inviting other children?
Alluring them to lunge with me into puddles…
At home mothers sought the opportunity
To prepare monsoon favourites to savour
And so we huddled cosily in a crowded kitchen
To sip cardamom chai and relish bountiful flavours
Gone are those days and memories can fade
Yet newer ones are meant to be created…
For this is the design intended by nature
To thus heal every being and every creature
As the rain abated nature enthralled me in its splendour
From the drenched earth and wild balsam smiling,
To the nostalgic shoots of turmeric and mogras inviting
Oh how their verdant hues grew even brighter with fragrances vividly enchanting!
Monsoons bring alive great ancient traditions
For the onset of the season heralds auspicious festivals
These are rather unique and colourfully portrayed in India
With celebratory drumming, pageantry and mirthful hysteria!
There was the sense of ancestral souls sending down blessings
When prayerful venerations were diligently observed…
Marigold garlands being offered with heartfelt thanksgiving
Even for the souls’ peaceful resting and to invoke abundant favours
The sun soon shone as foreseeable as the rain
Bringing with it a peaceful rainbow’s promise
Thus consoling the hearts that seek revival
Through the Creator’s abounding love and graces…
The freshness from luscious plains under coconut trees gliding
The togetherness from all livings beings warmly uniting,
It simply nourishes the soul’s thirst that feels so satiating
For divinity brings Indian monsoons to the heart’s wanting
I still felt that enormous tranquility walking in India’s pouring rains
As I heard that childhood rhyme of joy again and again,
From little children distantly echoing- ‘Rain, rain come again,…’
Even decades later the redolent tune joyfully remains!!
© Jeannette D’Souza | Copyright 2024 | jdsouza.uk
© Jeannette D’Souza
Walking through a distant memory
I soon paused to ponder over a silent alley
It was to reminisce fondest memories of grandma and her fascinating stories,
Of those chai talks in leisure socks, all brimming at her scintillating soirées!
Yet even long before that was a time I knew, when cheer found no expression
And this alley’s laughter was meagre to share, all cloaked in suspicion
Folks spoke little and went quietly about their affairs each way
In their boredom ruminating as to where their happiness lay…
For, fun-filled gatherings were shrouded in fear and so people hid in their superstitious depths,
It only got them drooped in silent tears and hopeless melancholic days
Yearning for ‘joy in living’ the older community looked out for a change in site
They wished there was heed given to this their unacknowledged plight
Now eagerly awaiting this miracle when a sudden change did occur one summer’s night,
And to everyone’s wonder it was an awaited welcome sight…
It came by unknowingly, draped in a sea blue saree that held a sincere expression
For this teacher of cheer came beaming by to eliminate dispirited impressions
Snapping out of my thoughts I noticed the time-worn verandahs succeeding in vibrant colours
They brought back overwhelming memories of those by-gone recipe’s and their quintessential flavours
Circling my stance around the timeless hedges of green locks
I got nostalgically swept into our cosy dilapidated blocks
They sent me whirling back into thoughts,
As I recalled grandma’s chirpy entry into this neighbourhood’s mystified lot!
Grandma Rosemary stepped into our quiet alley to brighten those mundane clocked pre-evenings,
Bringing with her a spark of wits and some valuable practicalities
She quickly reached out to neighbours over doorsteps genuinely enquiring of their welfare
And ended up engaging them for a chai and chat in order to dispel their despair
Our indistinct neighbourhood soon stirred
And from nowhere gathered many…
Intently they listened to a fellow familiar narrate
Life’s Intrepid ventures aplenty
They out-poured their feelings too onto this newly found remedy
Wondering in thankfulness that this source surely is a boon’s bounty
As their ears got tuned to grandma’s profound perceptions,
They hovered around our parapet narrating life’s scores by the dozens
Yet grandma’s stories were seasoned and coated throwing in her charisma so enchanting
To everyone’s delight she sprung like a lotus from a quiet pond, all very inviting!
Now daily at the strike of a span gathered they
Chatting around on our street’s verandahs decked from clay
Sitting in their favourite spots their eyes would begin to sparkle
Like the enamoured children lured by a piper’s melody
And so, not withholding her passion for forthright thoughts,
Grandma’s reflective paradoxes poured out steeped in life’s humorous plots!
Soon fresh pakoras and spicy bhajas by cart-pedlars came to be sold
To the whiff of chai poured by my mother and neighbours from of old
Over marigolds and jasmine twirls their whiffs drifted
Over pedlars’s fruit carts and my seasonal surprises
And Oh! the ‘mazza’ of it all sparkled my newly inspired senses!
Grandma’s chai community grew even larger by her vivacious rhythm
Each addition bringing in an account of their own..
Their empirical versions abounding, at times loony
While others daring and risky and some stupendously funny
Yet there was a lesson in each account to treasure
With instances of reflection and laughter being their measure!
The older folks soon started thinking of their unit’s welfare
Of bringing their older community together in well being to share
They cooked in turns many delicacies bearing many constitutions
I remembered the yummy savouries when invited to partake with discretion
How I relished every morsel while listening to their chai chats after meals
It all began to imbue within those wise words and folk lores tunefully pleasing!
From discussing health issues, bringing in herbs to initiating magnetic therapies…
Grandma thus opened gates of practical wisdom among the gated communities!
I remember Grandma speaking of family life and its undulating stances
Of sadness and happiness and all of life’s incentives
Her mellow narratives many a times spiralled in articulated rhythms
While listeners slurped on spiced tea made from cardamoms and cinnamons
How the aura and radiance permeated me in this atmosphere of infusions
Leaving me thoroughly influenced to apply the lessons learnt from grandma’s conversations
Her popular anecdote was- ‘Every home and neighbourhood has a familiar unflavoured story,
Those who never speak ill of it were considered wisely’
Yet there were other life’s tales she spoke of, those mystical instances…
Not long before she had worked as a security supervisor at the Gokak Falls mill-
One hot day, when lying down by a tree after a meal during a break
A cobra crawled from the rear tree up her slender neck
It stationed majestically near her head in a watchful tone
It wouldn’t move nor hiss as it settled its bone
Bewildered passer-bys saw this spectacle and came to stand firm
Knowing the safest course was to stay still while the lady was resting unbeknown
Yet later they tried to distract the serpent away
But it hissed to open its hooded display
And finally when the lady came to awaken
The snake quickly traced back to retrieve its burrowed position
Then there was this instance that I clearly remember
Grandma spoke of encountering spiritual souls
Once… as she walked from a jungle toward home in sandals torn,
All but lost in her young widowed grief thinking of circumstances forlorn
Then, further from the jungle side-paths she crossed into tracks unknown
And felt the sun going down in despondent sobs alone
Sooner from nowhere appeared a mysterious man
Clad in white kurta dhoti bearing a staff in one hand,
With his countenance covered by the vermillion setting sun
He enquired of her anxious nature and of her destination
Then he listened quietly with empathy in his bearing to her rendition
While he spoke not a word yet somehow it calmed her trepidation
Grandma gestured toward a village narrating her woes
While pouring out her shocked heart that had seen miseries’s course
Understanding that her need of the hour was more than finding her way
The silent man just nodded to her helpless poignant display
And somehow grandma felt comforted in her thoughts and feelings
Whilst she was brought back to her path secured toward her home…
Now when she turned around to return an appreciating gesture
Gone was he this angel in radiant vesture
She paused to look up the path they’d come
There only remained a peaceful silence with a gratifying assurance!
Grandma imparted several secret excerpts from her vocal journal of life
Her tuneful expressions were so inspiring and at times entrancing
Even though life brought forth dingy tones eventful in disguise
She learned that she had to carry on no matter what was felt inside
When she ran out of solutions she strode bravely through her challenges
With discipline and self taught abilities which brought forth untold advantages…
Widowed early in life with 2 younger children to rear
Tragedy followed on additions after the demise of her oldest daughter fair
Watching them grieving the five orphans with no one to care
Grandma came to fend for these little ones in her living of meagre and bare
She followed them through with devotion and family prayer every night,
Every child and adult was sat when candles were lit around the icon of Lord Jesus Christ!
Grandma also spoke of a time of prosperity and grandeur that presented her from early life
Her ancestral horses and carriages and their property’s abounding pride
Of how she’d adorned knee long necklaces of gold and jewellery spellbinding
There lacked no dearth for the family’s mortal wanting
For in her younger days her sea green eyes and bronze hair shone like a doll
She was indeed praised for her fair face and her slender stature tall
Then there came plague and war and a devastating famine
With dead rats to dispose, deceased to bury and the village’s homes burning
There was starvation and communities walked over kilometres to fetch water
And collected wild amaranth and grains over laden sarees together
All historical facts she unfolded in her unique style with colour
It sent everyone into spherical modes of reliving the narration with atmospheric wonder
Grandma was forgiving and never vengeful
Her mantra for life was- ‘Make Life Meaningful’
She believed in being happy, and also that one needed to be active for life
In every little way work and laugh so as to balance the two, thus celebrating being alive
She always mentioned- ‘Idle times pile on illnesses and repercussions galore,
So choose a hobby to share and impart wisdom gained from yore’
Grandma succeeded in decluttering the negatives by focussing on the positives
And so taught the community to make most of life and to laugh out aloud!
She taught them to enjoy the little things that made their day
From bits of chocolate to traditional celebrations and folk music sways
From smiles that went grinning wide… to tolerance in families
And comforting those broken hearted by giving hope in weaker circumstances
Snapped out of my thoughts by a ‘hello’!
I turned around instantly to recognise a face with a furrow,
It was my old neighbour alive and grinning
She reminisced those happier days when grandma was alive, the neighbourly banter and those delightful evenings…
While some folks had moved away and some others departed
Yet some stayed put carrying on the spirit of ‘laughing’,
In the hope of imparting ‘the truth’ learnt and their graces,
Those vivid narrations of seeing life through another’s glasses,
Remembering a spirit so distinctive that made such strides,
There carries on grandma’s exuberant spirit and her infectious smile!!
-Dedicated to grandma Rosemary RIP🌟- July 2024
© Jeannette D’Souza | Copyright 2024 | jdsouza.uk
© Jeannette D’Souza
Dedicated to my 6 year old Joshua 🎁 🎄 🎅 🎊
Above the small bedroom perched a silent attic
That huddled under the shelter of barrel tiles and clay
Its sloppy space made it seem even more mysterious
With dusty boxes and bundles hiding in its obscure bay
I watched the space from below through a ceiling mesh
All sparked with dreams of wonder and excitement
And dared promise one day to climb that rickety ladder
That cleverly hid behind the door tucked away
One noon I squinted through the mesh to hear
Noises of a peculiar sort that interested my skin
They allured me in tippy toes to the spot
Where the ladder’s latch opened from a twill
Grabbing on I tugged up the ladder’s rung
Onward trailing towards the sparse shimmering patch
Holding my breath to avoid waking my mum, stealthily
I tread, passing cross-eyed by my tabby’s hatch
As I landed up my tabby surveyed my curiosity to find
Web covered paraphernalia of peculiar sorts of archaic kinds
Expectations drew me too into my child’s world of fantasy
Which I’d always sought after within a library’s canopy
Boxes of old dolls, toys and Christmas cards unfurled
Together with my family’s heirloom of brass pots and nickels
Exploring further I stumbled on an enormous box
That contained the most exciting object in the loft!
My eyes twinkled when I hurriedly rushed to open it
And they even got brighter to uncover a tiny broken shed
It was like a barn with a stable of mini wooden posts
And at the centre lay a straw-manger bed!
Beside this box stood another one that seemed pretty
As I opened there popped up 3 kings with the set of nativity
But soon I heard my name being called from down below
So I dashed down the ladder disguising my face that blushed mellow
The next few days that followed it got me quiet
Watching for opportunities to sneak up in the attic
But to no avail, days grew closer to Christmas as fast
And my venturing secret almost grew impatient to last…
Once again I found myself magically up in the attic
Checking on the little crib that needed much repair
So I pulled off the straying bamboo from the overhead crop
And thatched it in bits to the crib with a flair
From them on learning ways to get sneakily into the attic
I got further ideas to improve the manger’s essence
It also started me into growing corn, barley and wheat
To improvise naturally a village scene on a ply board spread
As days came closer to Christmas my dwelling grew in the attic
For it was an elaborate affair…
To paper craft a backdrop of Herod’s palace and Jerusalem
And finding colours to paint at night over the earthen nativity ware
And so the exhilarated spirit made stupendous efforts
To work and keep every relevant undertaking a surprise
Yet mainly to present baby Jesus that Christmas
With a token offering from a young heart’s pride
Now on the Eve all set and ready for my revelation
I cleared the living room end and placed there the family’s dining table
On it I arranged the saplings springing verdantly in slopes
Together with a Bethlehem’s scene encircling them like a globe
Then from the attic came down the earthy bamboo-hay crib
Together with various freshly painted nativity statues in a box
Planning on I set the crib and statues in their strategic places
While my mum peeked approving with an all knowing nod!
Ready to greet around the manger’s scene there stood,
Blessed Mary, St Joseph, hovering angels and cattle and all!
Then I secured a miniature lantern with fairy lights streaming
To festively illuminate the backdrop of my Jerusalem standing tall!
Soon gathered my family to watch that blessed sight
When I placed baby Jesus in the manger after mass over midnight!
And thus carried on a tradition if not decades but for long
Yet to me the memory of it all remains emotively strong…
Uncles, aunts and cousins visited us to wish after services
And praised the scene and undertaking with many nods and kisses
The glowing lights around the crib kept us warm
In one spirit we sang ‘Come to the manger’ one and all!
My senses held close those sights and sounds in heightened elation
Realising then that the humble attic held my dearest possession
Mum grinned as she felt my heart leaping proud
And brought out port with fruit cake and festivities to celebrate!
Soon my tabby drew her long yawns under the crib’s main table
As Jim Reeves carols begun and we dreamily gazed upon our Christmas tinsel
And while the family’s kin took their seats around the Crib of hay
Mum was left wondering on where to lay the Christmas buffet that day… 😊
5 December 2023
© Jeannette D’Souza | Copyright 2024 | jdsouza.uk
© Jeannette D’Souza
I once knew an old man walking with incense burnt
From home to church he’d keep its fragrant light unperturbed
Until he reached the vestibule to genuflect-
Raising the thurible high he served the almighty in reverence praise…
Soon outside the church people stood waiting
Following him for counsel, wisdom and his benevolence
He would hurry to offer help from a tiny space
Thus he was set in deeds towards God’s place!
Moving down years: a thriving plan and pleasant days
Under the blanket’s cosiest “me” space
There lives a man who may only hoard
He keeps vindication over his conscience board
Judging and hurting and distancing brothers
Remembering every wrong from the past, he lives life only to repay others
Day after day his blaming thoughts make a pace
For every wrong passed he’d settle God in a place…
Under a shiny sun and hallo moon
Chasing passions to secure our lives of doom
Oblation tables are placed with solemn wishes
Offering without meaning its true reasons
Offering not beyond the good received, and
On we try to compensate with newer ways-
Just a measure of fairness and feel good charity
It is only to blind our consciences and its plays
How hard we strive to push God into a place…
We eat, drink and unconsciously say
Life is short and so be merry and gay
Living neither happy nor sad lives we don’t realise
That we treat life like shallow throws of dice
Without considering our actions blindly following
The most modern commodities of a worldly belonging…
We pacify our hearts in illusion’s sways
And as we stumble we forget God and His place
Hear, we hear talks of peace while loathing outruns
Lofty views being delivered yet no better outcomes
Wanting and winning under greed’s obsession,
As we witness the good weak under subjugation
When desire calculates every political move it makes,
Its rationalising actions nurture a vicious spate
Soon to be moving pawns into a confusing state,
Thence, we chose to abandon God’s place…
Where does it all go wrong…
Does God have a place?
When we strive with conscience to not hurt others,
Lighten a neighbour’s hardship and bring about wonders
Offer love’s charity that permeates hearts-
Choosing to forgive and forget, and
Reaching out offering help over horizon’s borders
Thus bringing joy and seeking fellowship of true colours!
But not keeping accounts of our good deeds,
Yet sewing Love and Compassion into a perennial lace,
It is then in our hearts that ‘God Makes A Place’!!
18 January 2023
© Jeannette D’Souza | Copyright 2024 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
Spinning the thread of the life,
Trailing it behind her,
Black-cloaked Fate sits brooding.
Silver-gowned Fate weaves the thread
Into the cloth of the life,
The tapestry telling the story.
No chance of unpicking
If the thread is uneven
Or the tale seems uncertain;
Black and silver spin and weave
Till the thread is all used
And the story’s complete.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
To those who follow me
So far ahead you haven’t yet been born
I leave this message:
If you’ve an interest in who we were
Look in the C20 censuses
Until you come to 1961.
There you will find us, Anne and Peter Smith
Married the year before and filling in
Together our first census. Imagine your surprise
When you find he’s called the captain, I am mate
(Though in those unenlightened times
I should explain I was the breadwinner,
Since I was older, he still a student,
But yet he was the household’s head
And I the wife or mate-those were the rules).
What, you will wonder, can these titles mean?
Were we of fishing stock and owned a boat
To earn our living catching, selling fish?
This answer makes no sense when you can see
The boat we lived on was in Oxfordshire
Just outside Oxford on the river Thames
Where it is known as Isis by the folk
Who like to use historic names.
Why did we live there? Then as now
Decisions made because of poverty:
We couldn’t afford a house or flat in town.
Was it idyllic? I seem to hear you ask
Down through the sentimental years.
Well yes and no I say, depending on
Which bank you faced when you were on the boat.
One bank was on the border of the park
Where trees and pastures captivate the eye,
And songbirds serenade the passing lovers.
Alas! On the other bank our boat was moored
Against the municipal rubbish tip
Where all day long the rumbling lorries came
To dump the detritus of Oxford homes.
One day – I’ve seen it since and so I know –
It would become the site of playing fields
As green and pretty as the opposing side
But not when we lived there.
On Sunday mornings student boats went by
Practising oarsmanship from early hours,
We were awoken by the gentle swell
Of waters from the boat-race-hopefuls’ wakes
Cries through loud hailers on the other bank
As coaches cycled past: In…out…in…out..
And: Easy oars, and: Bloody well rowed chaps.
In contrast sometimes we’d look out and see
In total silence coming up the river
A flock of quiet bathing hats
Swimming to breakfast at the Iffley inn.
And when the human beings gave them space
Swans, ducks and coots would swim majestically
Or bob along the surface of the water
While voles and shrews foraged along the bank
Until they met our cat who caught and ate them –
All but the tails and feet, and these she left
A kindly offering upon the boat.
You won’t find any of this in your research
But will be left to speculate
On who we were and how we managed there.
You’ll get it wrong just as I know we do
When piecing facts together, trying to make sense
Of what we know about our ancestors.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
Read at his funeral in May 2009
I see you, hanging on my kitchen wall,
Pointing a minatory finger in that way you had,
Now frozen in time; and further on that wall
Appear again but in a different guise,
Your ‘Who? Me?’ face, or likelier just ‘Moi?’
As one unjustly accused of challenging us
In a commanding or peremptory way.
But in my mind’s eye now I conjure you,
In your extreme old age not fractious,
Without the impatience of your earlier days
But making peace with those who needed it,
Accepting your constraints without complaint
Adding a newer and a sweeter tone
To all your rich life’s diapaison.
And now you’re gone. What stays with us
Are photographs and memories, and it is these
Which now ensure your immortality.
Live, on my wall and in our hearts!
Alive in memory, be once more alive,
More truly you than simply that old man
You had to be in your last weeks and days.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
(for ERM, aged 92)
I’ll tell you what it is:
Old people, sometimes, shrink
And are so wizened, mind and body,
That it seems they can no longer be
Who they once were.
Impossible to see them
In the mind’s eye
Heading the table at Christmas
Or being the life and soul
Of any gathering
Or engaging us with a joke
Or a philosophical discussion.
It’s often our own fear,
That we shan’t be seen any more
As an individual, unique
In loving and laughter.
But my father has not shrunk
And he has not diminished.
He is more than the sum
Of his own disabilities.
It is hard for him to be deaf
And hardly able to walk,
And worse for him to forget his words
Who was always so quick with the mot juste.
And it’s hard on us, but only
Because we can see how much
He cares about these changes.
But he is still who he was
Can still be contentious
Be funny and amused,
Irascible, cantankerous,
As the whim takes him.
He gives his family hope
That they too will not dwindle
Into anonymity.
He is indomitable
And frail, and still and always
He is himself.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
for my mother
You’re sitting on a table
In a photographic studio;
You are three or four,
Pretty, with long dark ringlets.
Your face is self-contained,
A half smile on your lips,
Not that childish openness
Of sullenness or delight
We might expect to see
A few years later, here you are again
Standing outside your grandma’s house.
Your face is serious, though pleasant,
No wide smile here; only a guarded look
Under your wide-brimmed hat.
Not tall, with sloping shoulders,
Blue eyes, black curly hair,
And a straight Egyptian nose –
You were Nefertiti, a friend said of you,
You were lovely in your youth.
Yet in your whole life
There are few photographs –
But for a few at school
Or with friends in the WEA –
Which show you smiling
Relaxed and natural.
Lines of self-consciousness
Stiffen your face.
I never doubted that you loved us
Although you didn’t demonstrate
With hugs and kisses after we were babies;
Clean house, clean clothes, good food,
Unerring memory of what we’d like
Or mentioned liking in the previous year
When choosing presents.
Desperate to make a perfect family
You lacked experience of family in your life;
Your face was often furrowed with concern
Lest you fail us or we fail you –
Which made it almost bound to happen.
After your father died at Passchendaele
Leaving those touching postcards
Promising good times when he returned
Your mother went to work, and for six years
Your nineteenth century grandparents
Gave you their love and moral standards –
Not many hugs and kisses I would guess.
When you were nine your mother took you back,
Gave you a stepfather and new brother too,
And some years later a half-sister came.
After you left his house your grandfather
Killed himself – you found this out
For no one told you this or talked of it.
And so you thought it must have been your fault.
Your mother’s was a cold unlovely house;
Always you thought of grandma Speller’s as home.
So, with no father and a cold mother,
A grandfather you thought you’d forced to die,
You needed love, you longed for love,
Far more of it than anyone could give;
But dared not always show your own in case
Your love was not returned or – even worse –
Those you dared love would die or go away.
And now you’ve gone, along with all the rest,
Parents and grandparents alike,
Not knowing how your love remains alive
In all your children who remember you,
And in the families they have themselves,
Not even trying to make them perfect,
Knowing they can’t be, more relaxed in that
Than you could ever be.
When you were here I went along with you
Not making demonstrations of my love.
But now I think you might have welcomed my
Showing more clearly what you meant to me.
It was not easy work; you were disturbed
In ways we could not rectify.
I wish I could have told you what I know
Now, since you died, that no one can
Replace the mother that you were for me.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
Gwen Pickard: 1914-1979
Your photo, standing on my windowsill,
Perpetuates a joke I did not share.
Those others who are laughing with you there
May look at it and see you laughing still.
And in my album you in plural fill
The pages, from your early girlhood where
You smirk and flirt and hide behind your hair,
And, later, stand composed upon a hill.
But all the pictures say that you are gone,
Whether they show a scene that I recall
Or one forgotten long ere I was born.
Of your bright talk and gestures there are none,
And that fixed smile and pose will never fall
Into the long-familiar lines I mourn.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
A parent has died:
Generations shift their places
On the family tree.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
You sit by the fire with crumpets
Your face flushed slightly in its rising heat;
I pour the tea and play the gramophone,
Whilst as you stir you read a poem aloud
Or criticize the syllabus we chose.
Outside the sun shifts on the dreaming spires
Mocking our need to live and alter things.
We cannot change the world: banal, we talk
Of films or meetings. You kiss my cheek and go,
Leaving your cigarette ash in the grate
The poetry books forgotten on the floor.
© Anne Smith
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
When I was little they said
After the war we’ll have bananas.
They talked about them so much
I rather thought they were fighting
For the right to have bananas.
At the end of the war
A visitor came to our house
And there were small shrieks
Of grownup excitement.
It’s bananas! they said.
Come and have one! they cried.
So I did.
It was a dried banana.
It looked like dog poo
And didn’t taste much better.
I cannot tell you
What a letdown it was –
Was that what they fought for?
So I didn’t like bananas
From that point onwards
Even though I learned
In time, but not in time,
That real bananas were yellow
And not dried up and turd-like.
It has taken me sixty-eight years
To recover from that betrayal;
But I am happy now to tell you
That at last I can say
I have forgiven the grownups
For putting me off bananas
So completely. For so long.
And now I really and finally
Like the taste
Of bananas.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
My family tree unrolls before me,
A tattered fan, thin, with holes
Where people are missing.
Facing the other way I know everyone:
My sisters, my children, and theirs.
But facing backwards I know
Only my nearest relatives,
Most of them now gone.
Beyond them are simply names
Some with dates, some with places too,
Some of which I have visited.
But a family tree does not reconstruct
Lives: how they lived, what caused their deaths,
The times they lived through.
Sometimes there are clues, such as
The Coal Superintendent who died of emphysema
Or the groom who died of glanders.
Sometimes a fact provokes further research.
I found a family who drowned together
In the Empress of Ireland
Coming from Canada in 1914
Rammed in the St Lawrence Seaway.
Most of my forebears could not read,
Worked on the land or in London,
And many of them worked with horses…
The tattered tree holds not only names, but lives
I am a product of their living,
But they would not know me or the world I live in.
One day I and my world will be a forgotten name
On other people’s trees.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
‘It’s a grey day’ we tell each other;
In fact the sky is white not grey.
As we cross the river the water
Shimmers in silver, and raindrops
Fall like silver fish on and around us.
We ought to celebrate this sparkling day –
Instead we denigrate
Its subtle monochrome, refracted light,
With words like ‘grey’ and ‘overcast’.
Because we’re wet and chilly and because
We want the golden sun to shine
And chase away shadows.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
Come to the door at night. Listen.
The wind breathes softly through the leafless boughs
With a tiny rattle as they move together.
In the garden shrubs rustle in sympathy
But not from wind: fox or cat perhaps.
A distant roar tells of the midnight plane;
Occasional cars sound as if miles away,
Trains rattle quietly by from time to time.
Behind us the old house creaks and cracks.
Silence at night is not without noise, then,
And yet in a way it still seems to be.
We associate lack of visible movement
With what we can hear or not hear;
The darkness in place of daylight
Leads us to say ‘How quiet it is!’
But come to the door at night. Listen.Night soundsCome to the door at night. Listen.
The wind breathes softly through the leafless boughs
With a tiny rattle as they move together.
In the garden shrubs rustle in sympathy
But not from wind: fox or cat perhaps.
A distant roar tells of the midnight plane;
Occasional cars sound as if miles away,
Trains rattle quietly by from time to time.
Behind us the old house creaks and cracks.
Silence at night is not without noise, then,
And yet in a way it still seems to be.
We associate lack of visible movement
With what we can hear or not hear;
The darkness in place of daylight
Leads us to say ‘How quiet it is!’
But come to the door at night. Listen.
© Anne Smith
Come to the door at night. Listen.
The wind breathes softly through the leafless boughs
With a tiny rattle as they move together.
In the garden shrubs rustle in sympathy
But not from wind: fox or cat perhaps.
A distant roar tells of the midnight plane;
Occasional cars sound as if miles away,
Trains rattle quietly by from time to time.
Behind us the old house creaks and cracks.
Silence at night is not without noise, then,
And yet in a way it still seems to be.
We associate lack of visible movement
With what we can hear or not hear;
The darkness in place of daylight
Leads us to say ‘How quiet it is!’
But come to the door at night. Listen.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
when it is dark
my bedside light
fights shadows
drives back goblins
wears shining
armour
and knows
it is needed
to save me
but in daylight
the bedside light
no longer needed
illuminates
only itself and
will be ignored
until the darkness
comes
Again.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
I wake up
I open my eyes
it is not too hot
it is not too cold
it is warm
comfortable
nothing hurts
nothing aches
I do not want
to move again
ever.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
No man’s land, between the days, nights lie
Uninterested, black, mysterious.
Dark pearls upon the endless strings of time.
Sometimes the night will, unremarked, slip by;
Sometimes foul weather rages, furious
And thunder punctuates the town clock’s chime.
Then in the morning all the songbirds cry,
Welcome fresh day in tones melodious,
Banish the night with tuneful, wordless, rhyme.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
Sometimes in the night
We slip from our familiar world
Into the sepia world of dreaming
Where everything is different.
We may find we are at any age;
We may have a family
We have never seen before;
We may wander alone
Filled with inexplicable dread
Through lightless forests
Laced with cobwebs.
There are no points of reference
In this world of our sleeping.
Yet sometimes when we wake
We are filled with warmth or suspicion
Towards someone we know,
Someone we met in the night
In the sepia half-light of dreams.
And if we tell them of this,
That they were in our heads,
They often take offence
As if, while they were sleeping,
Righteously and dreamlessly,
We had tried to steal their souls.
But sometimes in the night
We slip from our familiar world
Into the world of dreaming
Where we may meet again
People we know, whether we want to
Or not. But perhaps this time
We won’t tell them.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
Wind crackles through the withered stalks,
Through leafless trees grotesquely stretching claws
Towards the oppressive and metallic sky.
You travel on old pathways now decayed;
Before you as you struggle on your way
Lie my bleached bones without identity.
Yet for all that, do not tread on my
Neglected, unremembered
Skull.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
If everyone believed
And I don’t mean ‘If only
Everyone believed’ –
My mood being reflective
And not disapproving –
What they say they believe,
Everyone would be struck
Dumb with awe;, the world
We explain by using symbol,
Abstraction and myth would,
Ifthey all turned out to be
True, come to an amazed
Full stop.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
The dark gods swooped down;
They smelled the reeking hecatombs
Burning on the temple floor.
They sniffed, they lapped the pools of blood
Oozing from the sacrifice.
The dark gods followers, killers all,
Courted death, brandishing knives
Dancing round the death fires.
The dark gods scowl down
Admiring their handiwork,
Proud of what they have done.
No more are the hecatombs
Reeking in the temples;
No more do the warlike priests
Strut to the thudding drums.
But the hearts of the followers remain
Proud, unrepentant, bloodstained
Amid the ruins the dark gods made.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
about dementia
Waking, I’d suddenly no idea
Who or where I was
Or the time or day.
It was shocking, it was terror.
What must they feel
Who wake each morning
Knowing that soon
For all their lives to come
They’ll be like that?
And what of those to whom
It’s happened, and on whom
This blanket of unknowing
Sits every day?
Who never recognise
Those who most loved them,
Never know why they are there,
Adrift on an ocean of blankness?
What terrors this must bring!
For me the moment ended
In a sudden rush
Of recognition and delight.
For them it never will.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
I passed a van today with on its side
Advertisement: Bespoke
Curtains and blinds and something else.
I wondered idly what the driver’d say
(sitting behind the wheel reading the Sun)
IfI approached him on the driver’s side,
Tapped on the window courteously
And Pardon, my good man,
May I bespeak some curtains and some blinds?
If satisfied with them I may bespeak
Something more as well.’
I think he’d say, ‘What kind of word is that?
Clear off, get out of here, I’m on my break’,
Or something worse and ruder.
Or maybe not. Perhaps he’d say
‘Pray, do not seek to order from my van,
Nor yet bespeak goods out here in the street.
My number’s clearly written on the side –
Bespeak on that if telephone you will.
If you’d prefer bespeaking on the net
My website’s clearly written there as well.’
I don’t think so. But now I’ll never know,
Since all I did was wander past the van
In airy fairy poet’s speculation
No scientific test of this hypothesis.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
We carry the guilt of the living.
We carry the guilt of the Gentile.
We do not come here as tourists
But in expiation: to pay our respects,
To acknowledge your humanity
Stolen by the inhumane
Along with your names, your clothes,
Your pride, your families, your lives.
We try to understand the suffering
Of the murdered and of those who did not die.
On a bleak railway platform
We light a candle and say the De Profundis
For Kaddish, we who are not Jewish,
For the souls of the Jews of Europe.
And your story reminds us, too,
Of those from all nations, in large groups
Or small, or singly, who were put to death
Whose murderers without humanity
Dehumanised others through hatred
Or anger, or fear, or indifference.
We know whose conflicts continue
Through suspicion of the different.
So we say with the De Profundis –
‘Out of the depths I cry’ –
Mea culpa for the wrongs of the present,
Mea culpa for the horrors of the past,
Mea culpa for all that is yet to come.
We are the guilty, we are the victims too:
Shalom to you, the murdered Jews of Israel,
May you rest in peace.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
Above the earth
Beyond the stars
Behind all galaxies
At the edge of the universe
Is the veiled dark golden
Weeping face of God.
‘And what have I done?’
Weeps God.
‘Prelapsarian, postlapsarian,
Pre Incarnation, post Incarnation,
What difference has it made?
I offered my son, part of myself,
To suffer, to die for their lives.
But still they kill in my name,
Still kill for the love of power,
Enslave and punish the innocent.’
‘Bringing good news to the world
Is one thing’, says God,
But getting the world to take notice
Is quite another.
Making a paradise for men
Is one thing; persuading them
To save it, look after it,
Is quite another’, says God
‘So what have I done?’
Weeps God,
‘And what can I do now it’s done?
I can’t do any more,’
Weeps God.
And his tears sear the earth
And blot out the stars,
As God folds the universe
Neatly in two
And throws it away.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
And when we die
We start to be forgotten.
As we fall asleep
Our lives become a dream
Imperfectly remembered
Half understood
In the minds of others.
What we did and who we were
Can no longer be added to
But is completed:
Our virtues lauded
Vices glossed over;
Our prejudices
Tenderly mocked
Or put out of mind;
Possessions stowed away or sold.
Even our faces
Are recalled no longer;
Photograph and film
Seem to recreate us
But briefly, hazily.
A ripple only
In the pond of living
Soon absorbed
Into its smooth surface.
For when we die
As soon as we die
As early as that
We start to be forgotten.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
When we are born we are nothing,
An inchoate blob of physical needs.
When we are young we begin
To knit our lives to a pattern
Of our choosing, a pattern
Of what we see and what we think.
Faster and faster we knit,
Draw in all colours, all experience,
Exciting and comprehensive.
Growing up we knit more slowly
Weaving in darker colours at times,
But usually we knit more certainly,
Understanding how each life event
Takes its place in our pattern.
As we grow old our knitting
Begins to unravel behind us.
The pattern one day is rich, complete,
The next day parts of it fray
Until it is lost.
When we die we are nothing,
An inchoate blob of physical needs;
Yet more than when we were born.
For our pattern is partly preserved
In the memories of others
Who knit parts of us into their patterns
Like a patchwork of living.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
Is heaven, I wonder, warm
Like a summer day in a flowery park?
Or bright,like a sharp frosty day
In winter, walking through the woods?
Perhaps heaven is blustery,
Exhilarating, like a hike on the moors –
Or like walking in soft rain, cool
On the face after a hot day.
Is it all, or none, of the above
Being inconceivably better
And past all our imagining?
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
A tear shines
In the Virgin’s eye,
Slides down her cheek,
Quietly splashing
The Baby’s head.
That tear
Carries within it
All sorrow
And all love.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
In church today a baby called out
A loud holy coo of interest or pleasure.
The sound had no accent,
Gave no information as to gender
Or class, or racial background.
That baby, I thought, knew more
Of freedom and joy and equality
Than any of us.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
Today is a doing day:
Washing and cleaning, tidying
And reorganising.
The pale blue sky looks down
Uncomprehending:
‘I am the sky’ it says.
‘That’s what I do’.
We consider the lilies
Which don’t toil or spin.
They might say, too,
‘We are lilies. That’s what we do’.
I envy the lilies. I envy the sky.
The sky is for ever, the lilies
Live out their little span
Contentedly. What do they know?
But if I don’t toil,
If I don’t have a doing day,
I’ll have nothing to wear,
I’ll have nothing to eat,
I’11 have nowhere to live.
And it’ll be my fault.
While I think of all this
My doing day grinds to a halt.
Now it’s a thinking day.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
If only, in real life,
We went round as if in a film
Hearing the music which tells us
If we should expect the worst,
Or that our romance will last,
Or that we should be very scared.
We’d know where we stood all the time –
When to be valiant, or to turn tail,
When to expect a happy ending.
Of course the characters in films
Can’t hear the music either,
So they don’t know what to expect.
We don’t want them to know,
Or she’d never have taken that shower,
And no-one would have travelled
On the Orient Express that day.
But that’s entertainment;
Lilies and sky
Don’t have those either.
It would certainly be useful
In real life.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
The world is glorious, shining, sparkling,
Green and gold with promise;
Childhood holidays or being in love,
You can’t keep still for a moment.
There’s the absorption in something
Which takes all the attention,
So that nothing else matters
But also in rare moments there is stillness;
Everything in the background is right;
There are no sharp edges.
And then something is beautiful,
Is exceptional, and you are aware of that,
And you think ‘Now. At this moment.
I am perfectly happy. I will always remember.’
And contentment is a warm embrace,
Comfortable, friendly, familiar,
Not exciting, excitement not being needed.
It’s being by the fire, being at home:
It’s belonging to where you live,
In your body and in your mind.
And that’s a kind of happiness too.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
In the eye of the storm of life
Round which all places, all times, whirl,
Multi-faceted, separate, confused,
In many coloured frenzies,
In the eye of this tornado
There is a small space
Of peace and calm and silence.
Here are no colours, no sudden movements,
Only the quiet stirrings of water
And an imperceptible murmur
Of wind on the leaves.
Here is refuge, not escape
Here is all meaning, here is no harm
In its soft green serenity
stillness makes sense of things.
Do not invade the eye of my storms;
The times and places roaring about me
Are my places, my times.
My quiet space interprets them
Only to me. You cannot find yourself there.
You must discover your own refuge
And your own explanations.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
In that inner room
There are no windows.
When I shut the door
Only velvet blackness.
I do not know who
Or why or where I am
Or where I am going
Or should be going.
There is a candle
Only a small one.
As the wick catches
A golden pool spills
Over the table
Over the folded hands
And lights them up
Warm in the darkness.
I do not know who
Or why or where I am
But now I am sure
That all will be well.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
Orange-glowing globe, light the gloaming,
Banish gloom, ward off goblins
With terrifying teeth: your face frightens folk.
Sometimes you’re someone spell-changed for displeasing
Warlock or witch enjoying the juice
Of transmogrification.
On Samhain, Hallowe’en, days of the dead souls,
Festivals in firelight, dispelling the dark,
Veteran of vegetables, you lead lordly
Squadrons of squashes – you are magic, metamorphose
To carriage or coach, though to midnight merely.
I take my sharp blade to bite through your rind
Revealing the rich gold within
And silver seeds floating from fibers
Like stars against sunshine.
I take out your seeds and set them aside
Most meet for roasting, tidy on trays.
I peel off your skin, so thick and protective,
Form flesh into cubes, cook them with fervour
Over the fire, then savour your sweetness,
Warming the winter, warding off witches.
Pumpkin! Protect us from spirits-and scurvy –
Till Samhain is past and we’ve had Hallowe’en,
Hobgoblins and bogies are beaten and banished
From the year that is over, the new year to come.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
© Anne Smith
Under our feet
Where we stand
On what we call reality
Lie magic and mystery,
Remembered, half-believed,
Never seen, always there.
Chuckling in corners,
They shimmer in showers,
Shine in sunlight,
Sparkle in snowflakes,
Lilt on summer lakes,
Lend laughter to life.
We build on reality,
Need firm foundations –
But magic and mystery,
Beauty and love,
Play their own music,
Singing strange songs
In the darkness.
© Anne Smith | Copyright 2022 | jdsouza.uk
