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.

Benevolence. All that is good

It is the time of year where we put aside differences

Share olive branches and give forgiveness

As we recognise that human spirit is often all we have left to celebrate

In a world which sometimes seems to breed hate.

Bjorn asked us to reflect on a complex year where many have been stretched and shattered, and the pieces of peace seem broken beyond repair and then there is the despair as the void fills with the thoughts and prophecies of the great hereafter.

The paradox- we don’t know what we don’t know and yet this might just be as good as it gets.

I learned late in life that my time is the one thing that I can give that can be of use and beneficial. It is something that is extremely precious and therefore I try to choose to use it wisely, and be it for netball coaching or having tea and conversation with good friends it can and does truly make a difference. It isn’t about the quantity or the number of moments but about their meaningfulness.

When we give our time with love to another to focus on their story and their need we truly honour their spirit. It is irrelevant if their journey has been more complex or blessed or held more tragedy or good fortune. What is relevant is the state of their suffering or well-being at that one moment in time and what you did to honour it.

In my life I am blessed I have family and friends to share my journey, food in my cupboard and enough to nourish anyone who needed to knock on my door and ask for sustenance. I have the ability to work for a living, have made the most of my opportunities to be educated and empowered and hope that I have the wisdom to know that if this moment is the point in my life where “this is as good as it gets,” that I savoured it for what it was and accepted the joys and sadness for the experiences that they were.

If you ever get an opportunity to help heal the soul of another take it with both hands and know that somewhere there is someone who would do the same for you. With love at Christmas-time.

d’VerseOpen link night#186

http://dversepoets.com/?tag=dverse-open-link-night

For Ellen

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Grief rolls over me

In huge tumultuous waves

leaving you behind

This time of year it always feels like the end of something and the start of something new. Even though we are in summer it is the end of the school year. It is always a time of reflection and it has also been a time of leaving for our family. I left my parents behind in Jan 2006, my last living visual memory of my mother was seeing her crying in the rear view mirror as we drove away to our new life here in New Zealand. It was only supposed to be a see you later, but it was a goodnight.

This year I am returning to spend time with my family and I have to say goodbye to some colleagues and friends after a very complex 11 years and it is very very difficult, they have walked beside me when I needed them. However the most difficult thing I have to do is to leave my eldest daughter here, and I sincerely hope for both of us it is simply a see you later and not to all a goodnight. This might not have been how the prompt was intended to be interpreted but it is what it spoke to me.

Haibun Monday: And to all a goodnight

Haibun Monday: And to all a goodnight

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

Love in Sonata form.

Spring

He saw her across the room and his heart stopped for a subtle second

She was forbidden fruit from the garden of Eden

A thing of beauty and innocence with an overtone of darkness and despair

He knew that his love could make her brightness soar and bring light into her soul.

Summer

Their love flourished under the summer sun,

He brought warmth into her life

There was colour in her speech and

He offered her a freedom and release

That before she had not known.

There were infinite possibilities

An eternity of love that would nourish

And heal from within and banish

The spectres of solitude and silence

He would be her sanctuary.

Autumn came and darkness cast it’s cloak across their days

His light across the room was dimmed by her shadows

Her innocence tarnished by forgotten promises and the broken bonds of love

He knew that his love had enslaved and condemned her to an eternity of pain.

Their love had died with the embers of the sun.

Winter won.

© Alison Jean Hankinson

This is for d’verse

Make Music of Those Words–dVerse MTB

Influence of music through Sonata Form. As a trombonist I have always had music close to my heart and soul. I learned through classical genres and one of my favourite forms is sonata form. If you listen to something like Beethoven’s Pathetique it is very clearly written in sonata form. The first movement is the Exposition and contains the themes in their melodic infancy, they grow through major and minors in the second movement or development and in the Recapitulation, the final movement there is a conclusion with developed references relating to the the early themes. I find Sonata form is a good analogy for life, love and pretty much everything. I tried to capture its essence in the poem through the development and then loss of the relationship and use the season to represent the movement of time.

Recipe for a meaningful life

Be humble

Recognise that whilst we walk similar paths we all stumble

Be kind

Recognise that in moments of despair it is the hand that we hold

that makes us blind

To the pain.

Be giving

Recognise that it is our contribution to living

That ultimately counts.

Be brave

Have courage to stand tall and speak truths

and lift up the spirit and soul

of young and old

Leave silent footprints

That others may follow

In their own time and at their own pace

Be mindful

Recognise and respect each moment for what it is

It is your live to be lived

Make it meaningful and worthwhile.

This is for d’verse Poetics recipes

Poetics ~ Recipe Poems

Alison Jean Hankinson

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

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

December 4th. The Abandoned

You left without saying goodbye

My spirit was broken

Mistletoe mocks

December 5th. The Charlatan

Love was lacklustre

Was the food mixer the gift

To bring severance

Dec 6 and 7. The rector and his wife

In the beginning

Was the word and the word was

Pray for us sinners

We gave all we had

There was nothing left to give

God took it all

Dec 8th. The Teacher

Christingle service

Carol singing in the snow

Childrens faces glow

Alison Jean Hankinson

Deserted

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Deserted
“APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.”1
I waited and you didn’t come, it got colder and darkened days rolled into darkened nights
The numbing loneliness consumed my every optimistic thought
Extinguished every light that burned within.
The embers of our love were dying as the frozen ground began to thaw.
It should have been a time of hope, snowdrops heralded the spring’s swift approach
But these bones are old and our love is cold- but a distant memory
Cherry blossom parades her poignant pinks for a newer generation.

This is a direct Quote from TS Eliot, “The Wasteland” I didn’t take it from a book, I carry it with me in my head.
I think it is one of my most favourite poems – I love the Thames maidens.- I like the changes and the desolation, and the history and the symbolism. It reminds me of the wind blowing dust over the landscape and burying the present.
This is for Poetics at d’Verse.