family – Page 10 – Hues of Hankinson

Crossing over

Here I stand cap in hand

A lifetime before me

And a lifetime behind me

And in the lamplight the path isn’t clear.

Here I lean upon my wooden bridge

Subdued memories ripple downstream in the wake of yesterday

And if I cross- hail what tomorrow brings

Shadows or sunsets in the evening?

Alison Jean Hankinson

For poetics d’Verse

d’Verse poetics abridged

Image– my mum and my daughter Ellen at St Annes, Lancashire. Mum was called Anne…

The lifetime behind me is my mum, whom I left behind and lost when I came to NZ, the lifetime before me is Ellen my eldest daughter whom I leave behind when I leave NZ to return to England.

Childhood remembered

Childhood memory haibun for d’Verse- Haibun monday #28

Joanne and Alyson Abel had a goat. It lived on a messy piece of land adjoining their house which was probably actually their garden. Our garden was similar- a messy piece of land over a footbridge and formed part of a field. It never got mowed it wasn’t that kind of grass. I caught endless fish in a bucket using old stockings and coathangers and always put them back.

I lived and played outdoors in the summer and I don’t remember the rain, I borrowed other people’s distant sheds and turned them into “ganghuts” or dens in Doubledeckers style. I would track the rivers back to streams and back to source and wash stones in the summer sun. I ate gooseberries from the bushes near the Goyt (not it’s real name) which was a dammed swimming hole behind the school which all the children were forbidden to use- but we all did and no-one died, floating in inner tubes late into the day until we heard the din of the mothers cooking dinner and shouting for their off-spring.

Summer glow in heart

Friendships echo through the blue

Childhood re-kindled.

Images

Water School from the fields

Isle of Man Mill. Courtesy of Wikimedia- Photo by Robert Wade 2011. (My mum worked there as a seamstress)

Isle of Man Mill

For Ellen

michaela-sagatova-new-beginning-at-the-ends-of-the-earth

Pre-empted vision

And what stands between us

Is only time and space.

Meaningless when you consider the vacuum

That we have already crossed.

Alison Jean Hankinson

We were asked to use visual prompts to be inspired- the idea of new beginnings, this particular image spoke volumes to me- as we are just about to embark on a new journey and leave behind our precious daughter Ellen. We will be worlds apart but I believe that love, all love-especially a mother’s love can span the abyss of any darkness, cross any void and penetrates the cavern of eternity. ( The same Ellen as in Ellen has a fever., but she was only 18 months old then and now she is 17…)

Image-New beginnings at the ends of the earth- by- Michaela Sagatova, see web link below:

Visual prompt

This is for “beginnings” at d’Verse Poetics, hosted by Mish

Beginnings d’Verse

Ellen has a fever

It was the coldest night of winter,

snow on the footpaths and icicles

hanging from the window ledges.

Every window open to biting frost as Ellen had a fever

Cradled in the crook of my arm her chubby hot hand curled around my fingers.

Alison Jean Hankinson

For Quadrille#23 Curl at d’Verse.

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Living with loss.

It has been a very complex holiday period. We are packing up to move back to England in the New Year and whilst it is a period of reflection on what was and has been, and there is excitement at the prospect of what might now be in our future, the overall prevailing theme has actually been of loss.

It is hard to really describe what happens when you experience sudden and unexpected loss especially when it seems “unfair” not that any death is really fair. The truth is for those whom are closest and suffering the most, things will never really be the same and no amount of platitudes and musings will make it any easier. My heart goes out to Rosie who at the tender age of 17 must now find her own path through life without a mother to share her journey and all I know is that you never really get over losing your mum.

When our children were small it seemed so easy to be able to make things “better”, a sticking plaster for a grazed knee, a promise of a trip to the zoo, pancakes and ice-cream for dinner or a story about a skin horse who was so loved his hair was rubbed off and he became real.

I guess some of the loss is about the loss of being able to protect our children and make everything alright. Rosie must face the world without a mother’s love and I must leave my Ellen behind to make her own footsteps for her future.

Goodnight Katherine and God Bless. May all our children walk forward with courage and lead brave and worthy lives.

Fast falls the eventide

We were still waiting

Yellow ribbons fluttering

on a light sea-breeze.

You should have been home

Instead you were shards of war

In Basrah Palace

©Alison Jean Hankinson

Paul Scribbles asked us to write about “the end” for d’verse. I will write one too, but I also wanted to submit this one.

I wrote this last year. I was fortunate in that Dave returned safely on my birthday 2003. He was one of many Lancaster and Cumbria Volunteers (TA) that were sent into Iraq (Basrah Palace) with Queens Lancashire Regiment in 2003 on a compulsory call-out- the British public were generally unaware that this happened. I couldn’t see how he could survive, there were attacks, riots insurrection, IED’s, he was recovering vehicles from dangerous places. I used to pray he wouldn’t die alone. He survived but his colleague Captain Dai Jones wasn’t so lucky. The girls were four, and he missed their first day of school, but at least he came home even though at times he was definitely shards of war. We had an old fashioned lamp-post in our garden and we tied a yellow ribbon round it to demonstrate we wanted him to come home. We still have the ribbon somewhere.

Image of tree from wikimedia

by Ildar Sagdejev

A year ago…dark satanic mills

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A year ago we were on our way… we had driven to Auckland, boarded the plane and we were probably somewhere around Australia now…mischief is sat on her cushion and she is thinking…mmm a year ago we were at the cattery…

School had finished and it was CHRISTMAS…. we still have a week to go this year…no wonder we are all grumpy.

A whole year ago…it felt so good, we were so excited, it was the holiday of a lifetime, funny that a trip “home” could be classed as a holiday of a lifetime but it was. The girls were 16, old enough to appreciate it and we had been gone for 10 long years. We took them back and helped them to reconnect, we took them to visit people and places that were part of their history and heritage. We wanted them to know the buildings and the customs and the language and the meaning of what it is to be English.

We love all that they have had and experienced here in Whangarei. We love all that they have learned and the friends they have made but we also wanted them to know their roots, they stand on the shoulders of giants and they need to know that part of the story too.

We come from the mill and mining towns of Lancashire, our forefathers were immigrants who came to build canals and railways and they gave blood sweat and tears to make Britain great in the Industrial revolution. They were working folk, the wives and women were brought up to be strong and steadfast. They men eked out an existence in the Pit or the factory and they found their strength and support in the Church, the Union or the Alehouse in no particular order. They lived loved and died amongst the bricks and the dirt, the smog and the soot, the dark dismal days of winter and the bracing breezes of brief summer days.

I wanted them to see the bricks, and feel the warmth of the hearts and souls who walked before them-whose existence they owe their own story and fortunes to. A year ago still feels like yesterday.

Image: Ancoats, Manchester. McConnel & Company’s mills, about 1820. From an old water-colour drawing of the period. Scanned from A Century of fine Cotton Spinning, 1790-1913. McConnel & Co. Ltd. Frontispiece. Scanned by Mr Stephen.

Mother’s Love

13411939_10209544645598467_2234712537344072344_o My tiny treasures

Look at the scar that you created

I wear it for you with love and pride.

I wear it with stoicism

Disfigured permanently for motherhood

We call it an apron

It hangs loose and saggy like an old washed out jumper.

This was written for the quadrille at d’Verse. Hope it is okay.

Quadrille#22

Elders and their sacred knowledge.

Sometimes you have to lose a battle to win a war

When God closes a window somewhere he opens a door.

I can kill two birds with one stone but if I am too bitter and too full of hate

I will cut off my nose to spite my face.

Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,

But if I take myself too seriously pride is bound to come before a fall

These pearls of wisdom, this sacred prose

Demonstrates and shows

How the old folk prepared the new

Passing their sacred knowledge on to me and you.

Alison Jean Hankinson

Daily Post Prompt
Sacred
japanese-women-by-flickr-user-mrhicks46-creative-commons

Christmas Voices

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I think this is a bit of trial and error…I wanted to create some kind of advent calendar in “writings”…. so this I will add to, and I am going to say the inspiration was from Gemma, my visits to Rimu Park from d’verse openlinknight-185. It asked for a poem, but I hope that I can do 24 that will all become one if that makes sense.

Rimu Park is the retirement home and as I visit I often learn new things about both the residents and my own outlook on life. I love Christmas dearly and I think I want to demonstrate through the full piece that it means different things to different people at different points in their lives. Whilst it can be a time of family and of love and sharing it can also be a time of loneliness and grief not just for people loved and lost but also for Christmas’ past.

December 1st. The Optimist

Christmas lights twinkle

Full of festive hopefulness

Heartaches falter fast

December 2nd. The Sage

Shadows and sorrows

Embers echo-Christmas past

Silent separation

December 3rd. The Giver

Secret Santa gifts

Friendly fun festivities

Given from my heart