We worry about you, our dear boy,
as if, by worrying, we can affect
your journey through life.
It is a parent’s lot to be apprehensive.
But we must take pleasure, bury fears,
lift our fledgling to the sky
and laugh delightedly as you fly away.
We need to grow
to trust your endurance
to give you to the universe.
Copyright © 2018 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Him: I have no idea what I’m doing
Me: Welcome to life.
Him: I was in a cave and now I’m not.
Me: Welcome to life. Just go and hug a hen, it often helps.
Him: I wish I could navigate by Crocodile
Me: Don’t we all?
Him: Mum, why are you talking nonsense?
Copyright © 2015 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Re-blogged from 2015. This conversation really happened— and going to speak to or hug one of our hens is a proven family remedy for most of lifes burdens.
Crunching down the shingle
Drinking the sea breeze
Listening to your chatter
As you throw pebbles into the sea
Heat is no longer the enemy
Its relaxing powers repaired
Breathing salt essence
In gloriously cool sea air
Brothers gently bickering
Who threw the greatest distance
Your deep voices lift in humour
And how we love to listen
Chilling on the shingle
Hanging out with the family
Talking about almost nothing
Companionably
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
…we went to the beach with our sons to escape the heat, and I broke out in rhyme once more….
Today we visited the plant place
Delighted in sturdy trees and shrubs
And many small flowers nurtured to full brightness
In a long slow chill spring
By a couple who could be us in fifteen years time
We took time to linger, to chat and choose
Brought home Lavender, rooted stems of Blackthorn
Several small domes of Thyme
“We bought some Thyme” I said to our teen-aged son
Who contested that time cannot be bought
But is spent often heedlessly
Slipping away unnoticed
We bought time in his younger days with reduced incomes
Time spent with him and his brother
Not wasted, but well-used and treasured
I delight in this sturdy young man
Tended and taught, growing to the light
Both plants and children need tender care
Nurseries are a well spring of civilisation
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
The”Plant place” is Wolverton Plants. I wrote this a couple of months ago after a visit on my birthday, and have just found it again on a stray piece of paper. I publish it today in honour of ‘Where are the Chickens’ new baby son….
https://wherearethechickens.com/2017/06/08/blackberries-and-a-baby/
A mother to her son
When I look at you, I need to look further up
Each time I come home from work you seem to have changed
My eyes devour you
I hug and hold you to discover your changing frame
Copyright © 2015 Kim Whysall-Hammond
…re-blogged from 2015….and yes, hes even taller now and still growing. These days I have to tiptoe to kiss his cheek.
He turned 20 years old yesterday, off to France today…………and it seems only a little while since his first trip away without us, nine years ago.
The School Trip
Long limbs, freckled cheeks
He slips between us in the bed
It’s nearly time to go
We hold him, all nervous and excited
The week long trip looms
Kiss in the hallway at home
Dash to the coach in a gaggle of friends
Pulling faces at the window
I put ‘ears’ on Dad and little brother
The coach goes, and so, nearly, do our tears
They grow – you let them go
Nerves, sadness, excitement and pride
Copyright © 2015 Kim Whysall-Hammond
… poem originally published 2015…..
M1 in winter (Watford Gap 1 mile)
Mist enwrapped trees extinguish the low orange glow of the Sun
Taillights warm the twilight ahead
Headlights shine on traffic cones and road workers jackets
Jagged shadows in a field reveal a ruined brick barn
Aerofoils loom above, rotating for electricity
We return from lunch with a son at University
Time, long and relaxed, spent talking junk
Films, comics, games, YouTube
Reconnecting the family
Each capsule of metal alongside, before and behind
Contains a story
Adulterous trysts? Mismanaged meeting? Half Term visit to the Zoo?
All these journeys and ours are twenty first century bubbles
Made manifest in the manic twentieth
Our posterity is as yet uncertain
The fields and their shadows will outlive us all
Animals will graze, trees loom in the dark
And Suns set, wetly
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
The teenage years
All bets are off in the teenage years
You still share your child’s hopes and fears
But they are a child no more –Can you hear that slammed door?
It’s a bumpy ride–Sometimes Jekyll, sometimes Hyde
You love them to bits, you can’t stand them any more
And there again is that slamming door
You glimpse a young woman, you glimpse a young man –Try to catch them if you can
Sometimes it seems they’re a toddler again –Needing to share some of the pain
Do you remember when this was you?
Now you know what your parents went through……
Copyright © 2015 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Re-blogged from 2015….
Toddler
You cuddle up to me in your sleep, comforted by mother warmth
What do you dream little man, my child full of wonder
You exhaust me by day and then enthral me at your time of sleeping
Always asking for more, lifting my soul and life
Every day is an adventure for us
As I discover the world in and through your eyes
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
I wrote this poem when my sons were much much younger….
Boys
Long legged boys
Filling my sofa
Controllers in hand
Deep laughs mingle with shrill cries
As Black Ops rolls
Every weekend they come to call
Filling my sofa
Littering shoes in my hall
Then are gone in a flash as dinners beckon
And the sofa is empty
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
