Four And A Half

How do clouds stay up? Will my teeth ever fall out?
Is there butter in this buttercup? Can we go round the roundabout?
Why is yellow yellow? Why don't vests have sleeves?
Can I play with the umbrella? Can I have this five- cent piece?
What's the number to call the guards? Do worms bite?
Can I sleep out in the yard? Why isn't there day at night?
Why don't we live in Africa? Can I have another yoghurt?
Who threw out the harmonica? Can I wear the purple-bow skirt?
Is China far away? Why does he have a plaster?
When is my next birthday? Can my bike go faster?
Why do plants have roots? Is 'f' for fun?
What's wrong with muddy boots? Where did I come from?
Why is she putting lipstick on? Can I sleep with my eyes open?
Who can I play this trick on? Why do toys get broken?
Will Daddy let me have a yoghurt? Why is water wet?
Do trees get blood if they are hurt? Are we there yet?
Where does the wind sleep? Can I have this box?
Do cats do pee? Can I plant a rock?
Is twelve more than thirty? How do you make cheese?
Is my face all dirty? Can I have a yoghurt please?
Do fairies know how to write? Who makes all the money?
Are yolks ever white? Do you find my jokes funny?
Do bees hatch from eggs? Where's the rainbow gone?
Can I have those clothes pegs? Will you draw a whooper swan?
Can I be a cowgirl? Who lives in that house?
Why don't I have curls? Would a dog eat a woodlouse?
Will I get more fingers? What age will I be grown?
Can I help make dinner? What's a loading zone?

(Explanation: This is an ode to my little 4.5-year-old, Holly, who must surely hold the record for the amount of questions asked every day, she is unstoppable!! The poem had the potential to be never-ending. I asked Holly, nervously, why she wanted to have the phone number for the guards, and she replied that she wanted to ring them and ask them to send her a Garda play set so she could dress up as a guard.
I wrote Five And Three Quarters about my other daughter, Sadie.)

Citizen Proud

Rest easy, O'Leary, they came home on planes
so that romantic Ireland could rise from the grave.
Car pools and foot passengers on ferry boats,
they joined in to exercise their right to vote.
As you, I'm against religion and state
being married together to govern our fate.
But today, oh today, I'm a citizen proud:
No straight or gay marriage, we're one civil crowd.
I'm so grateful this nation, for my children, affirms
sexual orientation as an irrelevant term.
Mind you, I believe it should never have been
that an election was needed to make people free.

(Meanwhile, in Palmyra, a rampage ensues
death and destruction all freedom removes,
erasure of origins, autonomy, humans.
No polls or ballots or civil rights movements.)

Let's not forget Fairview Park and its like
and let's celebrate long into this night.
Love is the law now, no longer unwritten.
This is a country for all men and women.

(Explanation: Yesterday, 22nd May 2015, Ireland became the first country in the world to vote for marriage equality by popular vote. I think it is sad that we had to vote on it at all because marriage rights should have always been for all. I also think this is such a great day, not just for all the people I know who will be directly and immediately positively affected by this but also for my children and their children. The "O'Leary" in my poem is John O'Leary, referred to repeatedly in W.B. Yeats' poem September 1913. The last line references Yeats' poem Sailing To Byzantium

When I wrote Wave The Thistle in October last year I remember how struck I was by the wonderful display of democracy and dialogue in the run up to the Scottish vote on independence in the middle of the violence and devastation occurring in other parts of the world. The Scots were such a good example of how civil society should work and I feel Ireland shone in the same way yesterday. However, I think it is so devastatingly sad that while we were exercising our right to vote people who share our world were, and still are, being murdered for being in their homeplace.)

Bealtaine Blaze

The cattle stomp the yellow out,
grazing, razing blazing kale,
flames of seed heads wave about,
metaphoric fire on this May Day.

Belanus with no bright to drench
allows the grey, the hail, the rain.
Or maybe he just wants to quench
the ritual literal Bealtaine blaze.

(Explanation: Today is the 1st of May and, traditionally, the first day of Summer. Here, in "the sunny South East" it is a miserable, overcast, wet day with no signs of abating for the week ahead.)

Easter Confession

Dear Easter, I'm so glad to see you, I can't eat much more.
My feasters must be discontinued or I won't get out the door.
My marriage just can't take the strain, my husband's threat was shocking:
If I can't practice some restraint he's going to do the shopping.

He says he's now afraid to peek in any press or drawer
because of the CSI-type scenes of severed body parts:
Behind the Calpol he observed a hen's head with bitten beak
and in the filing cabinet a lamb's tail under NCT.

I add Easter eggs to my trolley while others abstain for Lent:
Concealing unofficial spoils is how the time is spent.
I polish off packs of little chicks and bunnies on hind legs
and then proceed to scoff a range of filled and hollow eggs.

Shuffling boxes, tearing foil, illicit chocolate snapping,
replacing those I've enjoyed then ripping the stand-ins' wrappings.
There it is, my whole confession, I've kept you for a month.
Easter Sunday won't be special but I've had a great Easter egg hunt.

(Explanation: Tomorrow is Easter Sunday. I'm not too excited about all the Easter eggs that we'll have because I've been eating them secretly for weeks!)

April Fools

My father gave us leeks.
He tried to give us more
but there's only so many we can eat
regardless of his store.
These alliums are in his way now,
new drills must be prepared.
He has his patch planned out
and the leeks may not be spared.
He'll try his best to palm them off
with offers made to every guest.
Despite his effort to grow enough
each year there's something in excess.

We've had our fill of soup,
these days we like them fried
with a pinch of salt or two,
mayonnaise on the side.
Reluctantly inside with bowls,
kids in jumpers like April fools
as they sniffle through Spring colds
from wearing t-shirts far too soon.
Today they did a ring-around,
phone calls to all for Fools' Day.
"Nana, your knickers are falling down",
the same theme for each trick played.

A sudden thought of  Plato
as I walk my daily mission,
admiring ridges of potatoes
laid out with precision.
My husband's artistry,
the start of many pieces
from here to pods of peas
if this rain ever ceases.
This month, for my age set,
is the last one of Spring.
Gary salutes, "it's very fresh"
on his all-weather dog-walking.

Taking Turns

Last year's last rose of Summer holds on for its life,
March's wind's no murmur as it blows with all its might.
Nearby, in leafy splendour, a bush decks out in green,
the primary contender to set the Summer scene.
While the garden has adjourned, it's not been unadorned,
both plants are roses, taking turns, as each new season's born.
Some years they are resplendent and flat refuse to go,
it's not weather dependent, they've often bloomed in snow.

I like that I can never tell, it's like they can decide.
In good years I take the credit, in bad I blame the clime.

Traffic Cone

With distinct lack
of baseball bat or basic knife tool
and a mugger
in the shopping mall.
I'm poised in prime location,
I'm without a gun
and I've kicked a bike against the wall.

Traffic cone,
with your highlighter colour,
makes me reek of courage,
helps me to keep armed robbers at bay.
He's got a knife in his hand,
I've got a plastic pylon in mine.
Oh Garda, don't take my traffic cone away.

I've followed all the clues
in this store riddle
and now I'm ready for the fight.
I'm going to catch
these guys and issue a citation.
They're so going down tonight.

Traffic cone,
with your highlighter colour,
makes me reek of courage,
helps me to  keep armed robbers at bay.
He's got a knife in his hand,
I've got a plastic pylon in mine.
Oh Garda, don't take my traffic cone away.

(Explanation: In January 2015 there was a story in the news about how an off-duty garda foiled a robbery attempt, armed only with a traffic cone. I wrote this poem to the tune and rhyme of Paul Simon's Kodachrome. Inspired by Irish Times article)

Reach In, Spring

Snowdrops in dresses
affirm with their nodding
that nature's excesses
are about to come knocking.
It can't hit fast enough:
I've weathered the darkness
and found it tough,
welcome blackbirdness and larkness.
In a glimpse yesterday
the sun shone. The birds sang
that spring is on the way.
Where leaves will hang
there are bare, spindly branches
save for holly, griselinia, laurel,
the evergreen enhancers
that offer a moral:
Not all of my green is native
or obviously not,
but is a part of the team
of my plot's melting pot.
The time's here at last,
get me out of this house
throw me onto the grass
reach in, Spring, pull me out.

Wrap me in roots searching for light,
trap me by shoots striving for height,
dizzy my eyes with lambs in the fields,
busy my ears with the buzzing of bees.

Make me a part of the seasons of rays
'til the glimpse of the start of the dark and damp days.
Then I will retreat at the same time as you,
and wait for the call of the macho cuckoo.

A Full Circle

Quarterhouse to the right,
a new year from twelve midnight.
Again we'll dance our steps in place
then move into the next space.
Ladies' chain from month to month,
opposite gents at elbows turn.
Any side step through the seasons,
crossed-hand hold for no real reason.
Waltz around, then back to start,
another year near to depart.
A full circle, all hold hands,
house around to beat the band.

(Explanation: Moving into 2015 had me thinking about how often each year is like the last, I take basically the same steps. That put the idea of a céilí set into my mind. Happy New Year!)

Remnants Of A Star

Another year for the elderly tree,
its sheen was passed expired,
its trunk was close to absentee,
its tinsel long retired.
As the branches bent in curtsey
it seemed as if it prayed
for mercy, blessed mercy,
to be put in a tree grave.
To this end it seemed it stretched
a finger to the socket,
we supposed to end its misery
by igniting like a rocket.

The baubles that remained
had lost their shine and shimmer,
the angels scratched and stained
and the Santas void of glitter.
There were bows defying gravity,
while clinging by a thread,
that used to be so velvety
and the brightest ruby red.
Two bells, that began as a pair,
no longer ding-a-linged
and a robin in need of repair
perched tailless and de-winged.
What might have been a candy cane
was shackled by a frill,
as if it was being detained
against its wish and will.
A homemade snowman, dangling high,
betrayed its cardboard core
and used its one remaining eye
to focus on the floor.
Bangers from old crackers
-pulled in olden days-
hung in rips and tatters
as they dissolved into decay.
A Magic Tree air freshener
(from Nineteen Eighty Three)
took pride of place, dead centre,
like a prized collector's piece.
The fairy lights hadn't worked
for many, many years
and the reindeer decorations
looked like they were close to tears.
Atop were remnants of a star,
we'd no choice but to knock it
adults now the children are
and only want to mock it.

It was easy to be all talk then
and now I hear my kids
declare, out loud, in public
how their tree at home's in bits
and we don't even have a second
to put on a good show,
just rewards, I reckon,
for my laughing years ago!
It may happen as it did,
as in McCarthy's new for old,
that I'll save ours from the skip
due to the memories it holds.

How lucky will we be if old age befalls our stars,
if our trees lose all their green and our children adults are
and they bring to mind occasions from their bygone days
and they remember funny things and they salute and celebrate
and they sing of five gold rings and they toast us all who gave
them times to add to memory to savour as we say
another year for the elderly tree before it's cast away.

(Explanation: I wrote a poem for my uncle & aunt, Billy & Teresa, years ago (possibly 2004) called 'Adults Now The Children Are'. Looking at our Christmas tree this year reminded me of the poem but I can't find it, it must have been on the old PC that packed up a few years ago. It was written after my cousin and I had had a few drinks in Billy & Teresa's house and had begun questioning the idea behind the beautiful artificial Christmas tree out in the porch and the pathetic-looking one in their front room. (Neither of us had children then). We got a heartwarming explanation from Teresa that they'd had it for all their own children's Christmases and she liked to put it up for their grandchildren. She also said she threw it out in a skip once but went and rescued it the next day. We had a great laugh that night laughing at the little old tree and disregarding Teresa's attachment to it, sorry Teresa! Just the other day in Tesco my nearly 4-year-old commented on the store's tree and shouted, "it's giant, not like ours"!

I've added this post to Dr. How's Science Wows's seasonal linky. For the other posts click here.

Update on 18/12/2014: My uncle has been in touch to tell me that the tree is out in a skip right now...but he's not sure that it won't be rescued before the skip is collected after Christmas!)