advice for the boys (who would be men)

Listen up!

A girl of an age never changes her age
and her friends who know better
are her aides and abettors

The young girl she knows
she blossoms forever
The cougar she proves that with age she improves

So:
The girl will be mistress of every man that she kisses
but:
keeps age under cover when she hunts for a lover
(watch her friends who conspire to corral desire)

what of we, other gender?
Ah, we.
just accept the ageless gift:
for a girl whose every favour will have no downstream labour
becomes a timeless beauty
just assume the easy duty
... and ignore that growing number ....

Listen up!
Stay on the page!
a girl of an age ~
she's always the same age

...

On having her on my mind, afraid of what is being dusted off

You Climbed into my head today
and stayed there,
poking around
those dusty,
unfurnished rooms.

Nobody invited you

So
Who
EXACTLY
gave you the key
to the back door
(the front door being long since locked and barred
With heavy beams of Mental Oak).

I hope you locked up behind you when you left.

My grandmother said: about regret, and forgetting, and living in the moment

Some years ago, I found myself in that unusual space: letting go and moving on.
This is not an easy thing to do, we all know that!

On the spur of the moment, I took a bit of a holiday and went down towards Plettenberg Bay, kind of sorting my head out. And I thought about letting go, and moving on, and all the while I was spending quite a bit of time looking back.
Something my grandmother had said to me many many years ago came back, as these things often do.

Here is what she said.
"You only regret what you remember."

At the time I thought, "That's so easy!" If you forget there will be no regrets.
But I soon discovered this is not the case. It's not possible to completely wipe out the past, and the memories keep flooding back.
So I went back to her, and I said to her, this doesn't make sense to me. She gave me that odd look that older women give when they are feeling wise, and said "There is no place for the past in this exact moment. Right now, in this moment. If you are putting everything you have into this moment, then there will be no need to forget, and there will be no room for regret either. The past will simply be what led up to now, and of course you would not have now without it."
But one forgets these lessons, until one day it all comes flooding back.

So I drove up to Storms River, which I had been avoiding, and I spent some time there assimilating the past while taking in the moment; and you know, I have never felt so alive.

And I have never again had to live with regret.
And best of all, my memories stay intact.

My Father, like so many fathers of his generation, kept his silence about the war

My father fought in the Second World War.
He did not speak much of it.
In those far-off days, it was uncommon for men to admit to emotion, let alone show it.
Instead, they would hold it inside.Occasionally they would meet at the old Moth Hall in downtown Johannesburg, and in the company of other survivors let alcohol loosen their tongues and their memories. But that is as far as it went.

But there was one day of the year that he might put on his jacket, and the medals of service, and go down to the Centopath to pay his respects, and, occasionally, show publicly his memory of loss.

That was on the 11th day of the 11th month, at the 11th minute of the 11th hour: at the appointed time and day when the promise was kept: "we will remember them". In my own time, as a member of the Transvaal Scottish, Second Battalion, I too have marched up to the war memorial, and stopped there to pay the respects that every generation always pays in its turn, the respect of this generation given to those who have gone before.

If there was one thing which would bring the spark of emotion visibly to my father's face, it was this: the poem that brought to life Poppies Day. I hope that it moves you to. Here it is, in full.

"In Flanders Fields"

In Flanders fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.


by John MacRae
the image is of  his original handwritten copy 
About the poem: The making of 'In Flanders Fields'