Brightest of the Spring blossoms
That in front of my window fill
These days with cascades of rosettes
On leaves like satin silk
And if I had within my strength
I would polish each and every one
So a mirror might be cast
Reflecting the noon day sun.
My Rose Red and Snow White
Bear out friendship's time
Sharing together what weather's blow
From raindrops to icey winds
And as April does appear
You once more turn to green
I look forward to the new shoots
Awaiting to be seen.


Love Mary x

A lane that connected two extreme differences
One a shabby, littered covered entrance
Where scraps of rope doodled round lampposts
And trolley carts became abandoned aliens
With twirly wheels from mechano sets.
The smell of discarded waste and ash
Made one hurry forth pushing bicycles
Starting the downhill roll leading to Lyles Lane


Covered in a green canopy of trees
The air fleeing past as we gathered speed
Up the steeps and along the flats
Feeling the freedom of escapism
The lane joined the outskirts of the town
With the sublimity of the countryside.
Pedalling on six bicycles.


Love Mary

As I stand and think
Any ideas fall or rise
According to other elements
The day maybe cloudy
Or full up with fog
So remembering is banished
To the outskirts of town.
Seeded thoughts lie dormant
And in this metamorphosis
Take flight
Never to lighten the world
With a flowery rose
Or cast wisdom on the stone.
I might think mightily
But fall to earth in despair
Mistaken by virtue
Or an over risen ego.
And so the slow decent
Only to rise up
In fallow field made of straw.
Capture me whilst energy
Still flutters, before
Thought in its watery
Words is submerged.
For without it
I was not.

Love Mary

Please does anyone know a poem
Called " TheWhite Page " or "The Blank Page" or
Maybe verse.
I think it may have been written by Wallace Steven
Or a philosopher.
It is a beautiful piece about the impossibility
Of capturing thought.
And has echoes of the sea and crashing
Waves at bottom of cliffs.

Please can you find it for me
Before I depart .
It says so much
And I need to hear it one
Last time.

Love Mary ***

If I read you I might get you wrong
Resting eyes in the places that do not
Belong
Or awkward mistakes of vision;
From this I refrain
In order that I can love you
Without discrimination
Not knowing what it is
That you are
Floating beside me
My daily weathercock.


Love Mary **

Can you see it that nomadic crowd jostling
For space
Standing in front of their favourite icon
Shuffling from left to right
To get a better view.
The room sways with the heat
And iPhones click, flick
Behind knitted gloves.
Picasso does not smile back
He is too busy with his legacy
Now handled by many
While he sleeps in his Château
Graveyard.
Tatters of conversations
Continually talk of
Sexuality and his women,
Usually to the negative,
Other than those who
Might see beyond this
To the structure of drawing
And years of observation
That brought him to
This spot.
What do we take with us
Leaving for the streets,
A catalogue?

We fell about laughing as if it was yesterday
Scraping the tea stains from the sink
With glorious soapy bubbles.
Handsome returned from his park walk
Holding his diary like a black bible
Going over the weather details
As any diligent meteorologist.
By now the sun had risen to its peak
Giving out heat to two blind mice
Sitting together on a waste bin
Unable to sing as their batteries
Now lay useless inside.
Dinner was salad and fish
Followed by a bag of chocolate raisins
In hard to open cellophane.
It had not always been like this
But now only the essentials
Of posting a letter
Took over time .


Love Mary xxxx

No one faced it as Picasso
With such an honesty
Baring the truth of
Simply wearing out.
His last portraits,
Full of anxiety,
Eyes laden with fear,
But at least he had it,
That creativity,
To give each day a point.
And what he left us all
Was more than beauty
But the humanity
Shared by all
To take us safely
Home.

Love Mary x


Love Mary ***

I leave you this as one of the most beautiful pieces of poetry ever written. So moving and yet full of metaphor and tenderness in the words .
Love Mary xxxx



“Snow was general all over Ireland…” The last paragraph of Joyce’s The Dead

Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, further westwards, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling too upon every part of the lonely churchyard where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
The Dead
James Joyce

Holding the Summer you would play
In the close like a horseshoe
Where garden gates met
And a garage stood beside a hedge.
After four when school had closed
There you all gathered in this close.


Love Mary

If I could I would hold you all
Tucked hands into yours
Close eyes together
Finding lashes brush
And where you move
I will stop you
By a loving more
Penetrating and
Unbearably beautiful
Than imagination
Can predict.

Love Mary ,Mum, Grandma ***

Take me not to any dusty hall
Where flowers dressed in vases stand
Or windows paint the saints of old
And carpet in panels kept
For no time did I linger here
Though tried in vain a search
So take me to that wooden bench
Where all around roses bow
And while still sad the birds will sing
And bring merriment to such loss
And children walk the many paths
Where bamboo rises in a clump
And Camelias embrace azaleas
Lay your hearts in this place
And be comforted, now, by
Thoughts of Summer sun.


Love Mary x

Travelling by foot in whatever weather
I took to walking the gardens' route,
With single lens reflex camera
Still able to take the sort of pictures
That stop the eyes from wandering.
Photos in black and white
Where contrasts given a subtlety
Slowly revealing the depths
Of the familiar.

And into the park
Where rain, recently fallen,
Drenches the lens with jewels
Dropping from tree and cloud,
Sporadically,
Catching the light
With its rainbow spectrum
And collecting moments
Of nature's splendour
Into unnoticed places.

Love Mary ***

At the end one has to acknowledge
Staring into the eyes of another
That there is always betrayal
But Love understands this
And is not ruptured
Steadfastly it continues
Doing what it is
Which is to
Live.

Love Mary xxxx

Wide lapels and herringbone
Was what my parents wore
A few years following
My brother and I were born,
Married in a registry office
My Aunty and mother in hats
No flowery additions
Their love was that.

In my father's pocket
A folded handkerchief
Mother held a handbag
An umbrella just in case.

I never got to try it on
That grey suit of my mum's
Lived in the few photographs
After they were gone
The bungalow was sold
My brother took the suits
And dispensed of their souls.


In remembrance of my dearest parents.
Love Mary their daughter ***

Manet in his final days painted
Flowers.
A collection of the most beautiful
Living gestures and gratitude
For his life.
Sixteen small paintings
Of cut flowers in vases
Sorrow's tears falling
As petals to the table.
Already cut, these blooms
Await their own slow demise
And seem as a metaphor
For Manet himself.


Do this for me, I ask,
Watch each flower as it opens
Know it is there
To kiss away
The tears
Of goodbye.


Love Mary ***

Oh poet of the moonlight stars
Wondering up into darker space
Searching for gallaxies of stars
Jupiter and Mars.
You're out in the cold
For hours and hours
With your binoculars
I'm all tucked up in our bed
Long asleep
While you're afar
My beautiful traveller of the stars.

Love Mary ***

Whilst away for a few days
He bought a book
Was thinking she might like it,
And on the Tuesday as welcoming
Her in, he handed it to her
And so in his heart it begins.
She did not know
He loved her in this way
Until oneday
Their hands touched
So gently at a goodbye,
The streets were dark
Her car parked,
But slowly after
Many months
Of watching
The slowness went
And they said 'Hello'
Properly
To let each other
Know.

Love Mary **

The ballet stage was not a place for me
Late at night this child not too bright,
Stepped out
All forlorn
In long nightdress
Frilled all round
With red candlestick
And there on stage
At Sadlers Wells
She did propose
To dance composed
But having not an ounce
Of spatial sensé
Missed the placement of her feet
And at the end
As the audience clapped
She curtsied with her back
So none could see
This shining star
With her
candlestick
A flame
Just
The long and flowing hair
Which got her further
By far
This beautiful
Falling flower.

Love Mary ***

Find a Daisy and pick it up
From garden fronts
The gathering begins
A few leaves on a stem, fluttering,
Snap!
And in a pocket lays
Side by side
To a thread of black eyed germanium
And thé peppery seeds of aquilegias
Falling into seam corners,
Creeping up pathways
Hollyhock rings put in
And then take a chance
With stem of pink pearly,
Ceanothus.
Collection complete for Monday
Trot home to find compost
Then *** up in the sun.
My little treasures from
The free world .

Love Mary **

Out of the door past the flowering Camelia
And barely bursting rose buds
The white hellebores with their
Down turned eyes
And swaying narcissus
I run to catch them all
As they scatter the road
With their dancing
Tripping in and out of rhythm
With each other
Throwing ***** across
To catch,
The wind gathers them up
To the park entrance
Our lovely park
Green with many trees
I reach them at last
We float down the avenue
Linking arms with
A child's pleasure
We are here
All together
Forever.

Love Mary **

There is love
Then there is great love
One may only every know
That there is one kind.



Love Mary **

The cards build up in layers
The entire length of my mantelpiece
I keep those of people I love in front
So on entering the room, each morning,
There are my friends waiting for me.
I find it very difficult
To throw any away
It hurts to do so,
Thank you.


Love Mary ***

And there it was at the top of her heart
Filling all the chambers where she lived
Those days in the war when emptiness
Called everyday reminding the beating
That it had nothing to do but to wait.

And it never came that  peacefulness
Carried in the pocket of her dress
With the flower stem of lavender
And a peach stone of foreign hope
That just soon the sun would open.

Love Mary ***

I think this is why you came to my room
On a sudden impulse that I would be there
Waiting for the person I needed but never said
The quiet brown bird with songs in his head
And you came because you saw in this child
A woman to grow your children and be a friend
The room was empty and the flowers gone
On the piano was your music I wanted to hear
Played softly with a warm heart and a longing
To stay.

The words have missing letters
Taken from my name
Idiosyncratic patterns,
And here and there
These spaces
You remember
And complete
Putting them back together
Making the word neat.

But these missing letters
Like keys that no longer play
On our old piano
Show that I stayed,
Shared with you a life
Reflected in the genes
But mostly the wonder
Of the world that
I dreamed.

Love Mary ***

I feel you slip in beside me
We sleep as two curled
Cashew halves
Sitting inside each other
Naked flesh close, embedded
In a permanence of love.

Love Mary ***

I simply can't, though,
Through all the words
In this world
Convey what it is to die
To say goodbye.


Love Mary **

When you come into this world
Surrounded by so much love
Welcomed by your family
With kisses and hugs,
I am sorry I can't be there
To see your darling face
Or know that newborn baby
Scent that lingers after birth.

To watch you have a first bath
Those tiny limbs that splash
And take a brush to your hair
Stroke the roundness of your head,
May the flowers be your friends
The trees shelter you
And know that I love you so
Even though I missed you .

Love Grandma Mary xxxx

All along the avenue of trees
Which leads down to the canal
Are spaces which cast shadows
Tall lengthening towers.

Down the avenue of trees
Many have walked
Some are missing, others gone
The gaps are like fallen trees.

The park, a monument to change
To the universal truth of sorrows
The welcoming joy of Spring
And every new footstep that begins.


Love Mary ***

I loved you from the start
On day one
Just felt comfortable
And we could talk
You told me about
The world of everything
Mother liked you
You shared knowledge
Of scientific things
She always liked you
My father less impressed
As sport not on your
Agenda, especially football.

You read to me books
With a voice filled with
Intonation
Curled together in a chair
You had a beard
And long hair
Dark soft eyes
Against my pale blue
I never stopped loving you
Never
It is now forty- eight years.

Love to my dear Roger from Mary x

The garden sweet
But the indoor roses
Will not keep
Not for times
Ever wanting chime
To linger longer
But do not weep.

Love Mary **

Where when close to the wall
The edges of your hair
Almost touch an upturned face
Filling just the slightest trace
As if not a whisper was shared
Nor a flutter undisturbed
For the note is quietly played
And Schubert's subtle sigh,
Goodbye.

Love Mary ***

Michael leiris said of Picasso

Everything we love is about to die,
And that is why,
Everything we love must be summed up,
With all the high emotion of farewell,
In something so beautiful we shall never forget it.


And this is true of us poets, too.
So those moments we loved
Are captured with such beauty
That the heart is taken back.

Love Mary xxxx

The passageway joins here and there
It combines today with yesterday
In a sequence of time
Changing forever the future
Letting in light and warmth
A union of sorts without speech
Walked quietly both ways
Frequently and without thought
But now stopping in the middle
Opening an uncertain promise
Where a dream could be made.

Love Mary **

If you found Bluebell
Laying in the grass
Smiling at the daisies
What would you ask?
Is she a fairy child
Or baby princess
Someone's lost treasure
Please do ask.
For I know a Bluebell
As beautiful as any flower
A little catch of wonder
Of bubbles in the sky
She was gifted by an angel
To show us the way
Of lightness and petal shapes
On a sunny day .

For Bluebell love Grandma xxxx

Everytime I try a little harder I know it is you
A voice deep and melodious
Who whistled many tunes
A man born in poverty
A father who was strapped
A bedroom where you slept
Always back to back
You whom I always trusted
Who gave my mother love
Brought me up a good person
To value truth and love
I never made it to the Gods
And sat in the stalls
But the hay was humble
You gave me it all.

Thank you my dear Dad, Eric William Henry Ayton-Robinson.
Love your daughter Mary x

I lost you at the corner
As I turned round to go
The little child with me
Had simply flown
Down I laid my basket
Carrying my heart
Bravely searched
The pathways
Before it got dark;
Then like a wonder
I saw your shining trace
Tugged you up close to me
Kissed and kissed your face.

Love Mary x

Standing by the fridge
We could see the roses
In a flower bed
Beneath the kitchen window.

We took to tidying
The cupboard, together,
Where the contents had grown
Hard and dusty with time.

The roses were transplanted
From a London home
Finding leaving her garden sad
So carried them with her in a van.

We made pizzas for tea
Using a simple base recipe
Adding tomatoes and chives
Topped with grated cheese.

In the flower bed the three
Roses, fed, pruned and watered
Cleared of greenfly with soapy water
Flourished and bloomed in the sun.


Love Mary for her mother Grace Westbrook

Its True


Ay, the pain it costs me

to love you as I love you!

For love of you, the air, it hurts,

and my heart,

and my hat, they hurt me.

Who would buy it from me,

this ribbon I am holding,

and this sadness of cotton,

white, for making handkerchiefs with?

Ay, the pain it costs me

to love you as I love you!

Although I wore my best wings
Which took me as fast as light
And though I ran trembling
All through the night
Even if I called your name
I knew you could not hear
The distance was too difficult
More than any words.

So taking from my back
I put down my wings
Picked up a flower
And we began to sing
Saw in this beauty
All that you were
But just could not
Get to you, anymore.

Love Mary x

After the snow came
You stopped loving me
Disappearing up the hillside
Fading into shadows
Cast by the trees
It was a protection
From the gradual
Separation to come
I knew it was fear
That held you
When it should
Have been me.

Between my heart and the page
There isn't any gap
The page needs no looking
My heart does that
It flies there inside me
Strokes across an age
Gives the world a truthfulness
That is handmade.

Love from Mary x

Oh to trudge up the lane
In the heat of the sun
Keeping to the near side edge
To face on coming cars
I would the wildest flowers, pick,
Hold them in my hand
Wrap around a handkerchief
With an embroidered band.

As the upward ***** straightened
A bungalow came into view
With my mother's gardening shoes
And a flower *** or two
How I loved this moment
My heart turned to glee
All my inside whispered
Soon be here with thee.

Love Mary your daughter **

I just wanted a friend
To be there at the end
Someone kind and thoughtful
Who knew how to spend
Those last precious hours
Holding my hand
Showing me that
They loved me
Please understand
I just wanted a friend.

Love Mary xxxx

Daisy got up early
Just as the day began
Clipped in her earrings
Combed her brown hair
Put on the clothes
At the bottom of the bed
Looked in the mirror, quickly,
Then went and got fed.
The breakfast room was cosy
All the family there
They all shared cornflakes
Burnt toast in the air
Then time for coat on
And run up the road
Working for the people
The ones she does not know
A good person is Daisy
Found what she's about
Writing gave her a mission
To fight others' plight.


Love Grandma ***

Pushing through the bushes
Four small heads
Tasting the rainwater
Dripping down their face
Step into a meadow
Filled with hay and grass
Long legged poppies
And tall buttercups
Flies in the air
Misty, cobweb trace
Come into the bright light
From this covered place;
Glistening in the sunshine
An arc across the sky
So gloriously brilliant
A rainbow for our eyes.
Standing together
In reverance for this sight
Only seen occasionally
When the weather's right.


Love Mary xxxx

Sunflowers have no reason
To feel sad
Their petals fall off
Leaving seeds for next year.

For us it is different
Our endings filled with tears
Our hearts break the silence
Our love was it all.

I'd rather been a sunflower
Its seeds fed to the birds
Its flowers giving magnificence
To one and all.


Love Mary ***

Far and wide we travelled
Up against the odds
Kept together, quietly
Exchanged what we loved.

Love Mary x

Here comes Margaret, it is nearly four
Takes her all day, to get out of doors
Makes it to the park
A few hundred yards
And back again, slowly, within the hour.

As she returns, Roger sets off
Carrying a note book
And wearing a cagoule mac
A five mile walk, twice a day
And factual writing recording his stay.

Wind direction, southerly, position of the sun
Underfoot weather conditions
A man on the run
Ducks on the pond,birds in the trees
How wonderful it is and all free.


Mary has a black car and rarely walks
Since losing her husband she rarely talks
The pavements are a sadness
Carrying memories of happy times
Walking together on Sunday afternoons


Pat goes, gently, her knees are bad
Many operations has got her this far
Stoic disposition she loves the flowers
Looks at the gardens for many an hour.

Walkers of the roadway, kindly, unite
Giving to each other love and insight.


Love Mary x