A Lonely Little Girl

to dance a million dances,
to sing a thousand songs,
to laugh and cry in places
in which I don’t belong, 
I force polite smiles to creatures
that warrant my distaste, 
but I still show up,
I do the work
and put on my best face,

but behind the row of houses
and buildings that touch the sky,
I often sit at river edges
and begin to ponder why,
why my best friends have branches
and my enemies have hands,
why my soulmate speaks in whispers
and grows upon the land,

why currents swirl like little dancers
whirling down the stream,
why the last time my feet touched water
was merely in a dream,
why mallard ducks sit distanced
perching on the rocks,
and of course it’s human nature
that wedges as it knocks

the trees they do not discriminate
even when out of line,
they’re the only friendship that I have found
that stands the test of time,
the leaves do not hold grudges
as they allow themselves to grow,
they do their duty, they say ‘goodbye’
and once again ‘hello’,

when asked if I am lonely
as I spend my time alone,
I am comforted every day
by the things that I’ve never known,
I have found my peace inside myself
and that in which I know,
And more so in the things I don’t,
aware that they’re soon to show,

I find my friends in the soil
that caress my feet below,
not in the pubs with strangers
whose stories are of woe,
and if that makes me lonely
and distanced from this world,
I remember I was closer to the earth
when I was once a lonely little girl.

The Four Seasons of Catherine

She was a withering rose among a field of fresh spring daffodils
Her once youthful hands now branched with veins and
bluebell eyes that wore the sights that I have yet to see
She was a mother, a sister, a daughter and grandmother.

Spring was filled with her glowing youth
 A time where parsley-green grass stained her garments,
where mud was a fashion trend for she knew not of
fine silks and soft velvets but of stitched rags and hand-me-downs. 

It was a time where bloomed a young girl of thirteen,
with ribbons in her hair and heels on her feet,
eyes that radiated with pinprick intensity
as the whole world unfolded in front of her.

Summer brought with it its first share of romances
She was now a young woman who pranced through the meadows
 of young men 
whose sleeves wore their hearts and tongues
bore their pride.

It was a time where she basked in her youth,
where she danced blithely beneath the warm, wine sunsets
 with sailors and soldiers and all those in-between
and all but one could catch her eye.

Autumn rendered a slowing down in her time
for she had found the half to make her whole
and to whom she bore the children that
filled her with the irreplaceable glee of motherhood.

It was a time that she watched the
rusted leaves that she had grown to know
 fall to the frost-glazed grass,
whilst she desperately holds onto her roots.

Winter was a time of solitude
where she watched as her young reared young of their own
and soon, the world was a vast, cold,
empty space that she could no longer brave to dwell. 

It was a time where tiredness filled her eyes and her
lethargic face that was interwoven with the finest of fine lines
that each told a story that carers would never care to know,
lay gracefully on a hospital bed.

The circle of life is a cruel yet beautiful thing,
for she was a lover of life and bearer of pain
but she was more than just a withering rose,
she was eternal.