Mine colombine companion and I continue to practise our people poems. This is from a series of poems I composed after my Step-Gran died, in Summer 2012. It describes the afternoon I first met her, with my two brothers and Cousin Ruth. We'll call it syllabics, I think. 'Yeah' :>)
First sight
All afternoon, hide and seek, jumping from trees
and wading in fishponds to clean dirty knees,
a story from Koala, new takes on school songs,
then teatime, a food fight with Aunt's best cake tongs.
Once silenced, we slumped in the sycamore shade,
enjoying the dregs of our fresh lemonade,
while guinea pig Rusty searched round for a treat
and settled by two unfamiliar feet.
We glanced up; it seemed she had always been there,
the late August sunlight upon her grey hair;
we muttered among ourselves, shy for a while,
then each by turn lured by her beautiful smile.
We learned that this lady was Grandad's Good Friend,
a Ramblers Club member, to whom he had penned
the hope that she might care to join him for tea;
and since she liked scones, she'd said yes, certainly.
- - -
Note, Koala here is not Koalaman, but my younger brother's toy, a present from Grandad's first wife when A. was just 5. Here are Koala and Koalaman taking a bath together, in 2016 or so:
