Missing Ellen

For a moment my resolve waivers

I am on a precipice being plunged into darkness

By the weight of losing you.

Dull ache and yearning for your return.

Was I a good parent?

Should I have done more?

A flicker of doubt devours me.

©Alison Jean Hankinson

This is for d’Verse. Happy sixth birthday. It is Quadrille night and the word we were given was flicker. Ellen is my eldest twin daughter and we left her behind in NZ- very remiss of us. XXX

Back at you… determined not to be a martyr Lily took the law into her own hands….

I want to serve it back

With a wooden cricket bat

Just one great big thwack

Sends you reeling in the rain

I Paddle in your blood stain

“That’ll learn you” I feel no disdain

Bat in hand and now it is done

You are forever silenced and gone

Only vile memories of you linger on.

There is no post murder remorse

You broke me and ridiculed my flaws

No grief just justice in this final vengeful divorce.

Alison Jean Hankinson

This was an accidental poem and I suspect Lily is a distant relative of Fairground Fay. However as I searched for a suitable image of Lily….I came across the beautiful Lillian Gish. She was movie star in the silent movie era, and although she never married, she did have several love affairs, one notorious one with a director called D W Griffith. There were some who declared the relationship to be “an ongoing psychodrama” but I have no real knowledge of this matter. Anyway I feel that Lillian Gish is the perfect image for my accidental revenge poem. Both images courtesy of wikimedia.

Water-lilies.

Lilies fragile and fragrant

Nymphs at the water’s edge

We danced daringly amidst the emerald damselflies

Bathed bashfully beneath the Buckwheat moon

Love smouldered and we stole each other’s hearts

Pleading troths of love and intimacy for eternity.

©Alison Jean Hankinson.

Photo own- this month’s Buckwheat Moon. Submitted for Toads Tuesday platform. P1050371

Village summers.

Floppy hat, bird-splat

Summer sport

Cricket bat.

Ice cream, sunscreen

Melting in the heat

Dad’s dream.

Alison Jean Hankinson

A bit of summer fun for Toads.

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Sublime simplicity

Across the sea the scarlet sky

Nature helps us simplify

We cherish magic moments

In busy life atonement.

Alison Jean Hankinson

I am using this for the Tuesday link at Toads. I was in mindful mode last week.

Awe and wonder. Heysham nights.

In a moment of awe and wonder

All fears and worries are cast asunder

Bountiful life affirmed in Summer sunset

Magical moment in mindful mindset.

Clarity, depth colour hue

And in return gratitude.

In a moment of awe and wonder

We see the world in all its splendour

All our sorrows and anxiety we forget

Beauty in life affirmed by summer sunset.

Alison Jean Hankinson

This is my first contribution to Toads....hope it is okay.

Fake it ’til you make it.

Affirmations

They help us to remind ourselves of the positives. After all that is what they are all about, they are intended to help us affirm our strengths.
They help to restore the balance within our brains that can occur when our self-esteem has taken a bit of a battering. (self–esteem can be very fluid.)
They feed and nourish our long-term self-efficacy.
Fake it until we make it, a lot of research out there suggests that we can shape what we will become by the thoughts we perceive as important, and therefore having good thoughts about ourselves should ultimately lead us to have better outcomes in life.
It can give us a better sense of gratitude and self-worth.

My acrostic was my attempt at writing myself an affirming acrostic, it isn’t about its depth and breadth as a piece of poetry but about the mental processes and the affirmations that occurred whilst penning it.

Amazing

Fun loving

Friendly

Industrious

Resilient

Maternal

Accepting

Tenacious

Intelligent

Open to new ideas

Nurturing.

Alison Jean Hankinson.

Fancy Perfume and Twirling Ribbons

Poems can ring, rise upon sun and moon

or bring momentum to an errant flame.

Maybe it falls face first, mangled too soon

its sound wailing against the sting of rain.

Dawn will singe your senses, set them all free

perform song and acrobatic dances

cry out in celebration, yours to see

Rhymes scatter silently like forgotten fancies.

The wilderness rings bright with poetic voices

Sublime and reverent sounds echo through the trees

Words of wonderment and great rejoices

Poetic dreams elope on shifting breeze.

Ideas and thoughts float light as a feather

Our words will often weave them lovingly together.

Alison Jean Hankinson

This is a shared piece of poetry in response to Jilly’s July Challenge.

Click here to read the details on how you can participate in Jilly’s July Challenge.

I didn’t manage the anagram bit…but I did complete the sonnet that was begun by colourfulpen.

Sorry I didn’t manage the anagram bit.

The healing power of nature.

Sense of Awe and wonder
Embrace the moment
negative ions create positive vibes

I have always been drawn to exploring the natural environment. As a young girl, I was forever roaming the hills and tracing rivers back to their source. I had no real idea of the real names of the flora and fauna but it didn’t stop me from getting pleasure from them. My earliest playground was a place called the “red river” that was a tributary of the Whitewell Brook and was named after the colour of the water that was supposedly tainted by copper-I suspect it was actually clay. In areas where the river had eroded steep channels, there was evidence of both clay and shale, and I invariably went home wet through and muddy as it was difficult to climb the steep sides and I invariably ended up waist deep in mud and water.

Thankfully Heysham has the healing beauty of the sea and I don’t have to wade through rivers. At my age that would probably be detrimental to my health especially if I slipped and fell. So why does that brief encounter with nature fill our cup up, what is it that heals us from our encounters with the natural world?

The sense of awe and wonder…we are part of something greater and far more sophisticated than our trivial daily worries and concerns. Nature is great and big, we are small and insignificant in comparison.
The concept of the embracing the moment is reinforced on our journey with nature. Every footstep reveals a new view and vantage point, and every second and every angle and every nuance of weather can change the landscape and the nature that we are witness to.
Bio-feedback, we re-energise, we relax, we exercise, the chemicals released in our brains are chemicals associated with pleasure and lifting mood.
Fresh air, oxygen to the brain and those negative ions-perhaps it is no accident I have always had a love of rivers lakes and the sea. The negative ions associated with these features ar supposed to create positive vibes.
Vitamin D and natural light. Whilst we are out and about enjoying our relationship with nature we are experiencing natural light and also absorbing Vitamin D from the rays of the sun. Both of these are good for our general and our emotional well-being.

There are probably lots of others too, but for me, these are enough to stir me into getting up out of my chair and out into the natural world, even when I am under the weather.

Some of my nature-inspired poems- if you like poetry:

Seaside sandcastles

Summer sunset at Heysham

Sunset Silhouette

Storm clouds gather over Heysham Head.

Alison Jean Hankinson