Sports day and she doesn’t know how to do it, She is shy and curls herself around my legs. She is in a running race but slows to look at me taking a picture, She stops short of the finish line and turns to see if I am still there.
Tag Archives: poem
#36
We break crockery every day it seems. There is a little stack of it in the corner of the kitchen that builds up and up. Mugs, a cup, two bowls. I can’t bear to throw it out just yet, I will turn it into something good one day.
#35
The kids are asleep and we’re like ‘quick! Tidy the house, get the dishes done, stand outside in the evening sunshine’. There must be some semblance of normality here, without the whirlwind, the half-thoughts, the avalanche of children. It is so good to have the sun on my face in the evening, to hear theContinueContinue reading “#35”
#34
There are toys strewn over the house, a pile of washing up, a garden full of the trail of a day’s play. Ben is not quite asleep, I listen to his little noises while I watch the news on low volume. The other two sleep, tired out by the sun. I can’t face tidying, OrContinueContinue reading “#34”
#33
He won’t be put down today, he eats only cool grapes and strawberries. He won’t sleep on his own bed, only next to me, his head wedged up against the pillow. He is sad and teary with teething today, and wants only to be held and touched. He wants to know I am there, thatContinueContinue reading “#33”
#32
7-1 and I feel awful for Brazil, for all these guys in the stands with tears running down their cheeks, for the shattered dream, the shame.
#31
I take chocolate, a cup of earl grey and my aching back up to my little writing room where I can pretend that I have all the time in the world to sink into ‘The Grapes of Wrath’, to look outside the window to the fading light. Three sleepy bodies are breathing heavily. My husbandContinueContinue reading “#31”
Home
Sometimes it is the weight that you take in a place. Or not. Sometimes you feel as if no one would even notice if you were gone. Sometimes you feel as if you were a bird, a tiny skeleton, and that it would be just as well to go and land somewhere else.ContinueContinue reading “Home”
#30
Your face makes a shadow against the sun. You crawl over me, Pinning me to the earth, This moment, This place. I’m lying on the grass in the hot sun. The bells ring loudly this Sunday afternoon. I’m too tired to move.
#29
She whispers to me in her bed, in the half-light. She says ‘there’s a little car at Grandmas, I’ll show you, I’ll get it out of the shed.’ She is serious, her face set, her little eyes shining. I can’t remember why she started talking about the little car, or what it has to doContinueContinue reading “#29”
#28
Friday afternoon. A cup of coffee at a friends, a chocolate muffin, a rain shower. Two hours of only having to think about this sweet coffee, and talking with my friends. I am responsible for no one except myself. It is a calming thought. Children cry but they are not my own. My heart isContinueContinue reading “#28”
#27
Moments of peace today, Moments of crazy. Like when I say ‘If either of you gets out of your bed again, I’m going to lose the plot’. I’m too tired and I need a break, and also to work out how to do this thing called life, With three little ones, a husband, a cat,ContinueContinue reading “#27”
#25
I have a helper in the garden today, she gets changed into her blue spotty dress, she holds the secateurs awkwardly as she tries to clip a branch out of the way. ‘I cant do it’ she says, ‘push me on the rope swing’. She drops the secateurs in the long grass, and turns andContinueContinue reading “#25”
#24
It is like a whirlwind in our house on a Monday, after a week away, when I am still trying to catch up with washing. Ben is his usual self, growing growing, learning to stand, To wave, to blow kisses. Ivy is self sufficient today- she potters in the garden with her teddies. She squealsContinueContinue reading “#24”
#23
We have never been to Glastonbury and wonder if there’s something we are missing. We watch it from the living room, mesmerised. The garden is beautiful today, in our absence it has changed. A hundred roses burst from their buds, The spinach flails wildly. Sam runs from bush to bush, Searching for raspberries, gooseberries, tomatoes.
#22
We say goodbye to the beach on a windy but clear night. He takes as many stones as he can carry. She flits like a bird, says I can see an eagle mummy. (She means seagull). I cram pictures onto my iPhone because I want to keep it like this. But I wonder if IContinueContinue reading “#22”
#21
There are gravelled paths, a snail parade across the way, blue slate walls and ferns looping over the path. We walk up and up and turn to see the blue arm of the river, freckled with white boats. A spring flows down next to the path. Everything is still in the afternoon and amber sun.ContinueContinue reading “#21”
#20
We walk over a hill under blue skies and down a track going deeper into the knotty woods. We try to wear them out before bed but they still have more energy than us. Run little ones, you will overtake us one day.
#19
We are defeated by the sun. The children are too hot and don’t go to sleep until 9. But still, but still, today there have been treasures- a car ferry, their belief suspended as we sailed out on the water- a cliff railway down to hot hot sands, good friends, a few raindrops.
#18
So beautiful. So good to have my expectations exceeded. The sun makes the sea sparkle, the children are happy. We are surprised by good things at Blackpool Sands, by the green trees just back from the shoreline, by the golden shingle, by the hidden cove. On the beach everyone dreams.
#17
I can’t even remember what I have done today. Except that I have had energy and I don’t know why. We went to the shop to buy holiday magazines, the children are wild with excitement.
#16
A good day. Ben is like clockwork. He sleeps, then wakes red faced and hair ruffled. He tells me what he wants all day long and I think it is a wonder, all that goes on inside him that I don’t yet know. I close the curtains and he says ‘a da da’ very definitely.ContinueContinue reading “#16”
#15
Sam went to school today For the first time, And then he wouldn’t tell me about it because he was too tired, And it reminded me of those days When I’d drop him off at preschool, Only three, And go to get him later, not knowing what he’d done, How he’d spent his five hours,ContinueContinue reading “#15”
#14
We keep worrying about our little girl who goes high and low like a roller coaster. She is only three, not old enough for any of this really. Still she is brave, much braver than me.
#13
Sometimes I want it to go on forever: this exhaustion in the summer evening, this ache in my belly of love for these little people who need me. The thought of them growing up is too painful to think about just now. Let’s pretend you will always come and sit on my lap for cuddles,ContinueContinue reading “#13”
#12
I forgot to write yesterday, too busy with these little ones who bring me so much joy, who make my back ache and who have taught me to love.
#11
It is times like these where the sun is kind in the morning, where it kisses your skin with sweetness, where your toes are damp from the morning dew, where the world just here is happy to be alive- these birds, these buzzing flies, these trees. Thankful is how I feel this morning, humbled toContinueContinue reading “#11”
#10
Wine bottle empty on the table, the TV on too loud, the lights too bright. I need sleep. It has been a loud night.
#8
It is half past nine when we step outside into our clear beautiful garden, and inhale a lungful of sweet night air. I pull the washing (still damp) from the line and you gather up those dirty and faded plastic toys that the kids have scattered around. We fold up the teepee, look at theContinueContinue reading “#8”
#4
It has been a crazy non stop day. There has been laughter and tears in the garden, fighting over the rope swing, a big four year old boy getting toys for his little brother, playing with him. There has been a scoot to the playground where the light was beautiful and clear, where we satContinueContinue reading “#4”
Today
Today has been like a tree with high branches to sit or climb in. Treehouse tall. I have been scared and cried, I have felt my heart quake with worry, but I have seen a beautiful blue sky and walked in the sunshine too. Roots and branches, all different directions. That has been today.
Another One
Another one. I was in the garden centre with my two, no three now. I forget to count Ben because he is so little, even now. I strap him to me and he doesn’t cry so I have a hand each and a strong voice for the other two. There we were with our overpricedContinueContinue reading “Another One”
Enough is enough
here in the evening, emptied out. here I am, sitting on the carpet, the debris of the day strewn around me like a fox has been at a rubbish bag. the baby squirms and wriggles on the sofa; he is not yet settled. I have not yet washed up, had a cup of tea, hadContinueContinue reading “Enough is enough”
July Thunder
We are at playgroup; the last of term in a heatwave. The grass has turned to straw, and the children run about in their swimming costumes. The colour goes out from the sky though, and there is a clap of thunder that makes us all jump. The rain falls on us like God is pouringContinueContinue reading “July Thunder”
Crying in Public Places
This time it is me again, in a room of friends or a room of strangers. At the door of my son’s preschool when he shouts ‘don’t like preschool’ the whole way there, and leaps from the buggy board and runs off down the road, and I hand him over, howling and I have toContinueContinue reading “Crying in Public Places”
Stella del Mattino
Sitting in the car on a rainy day, waiting for you. One child calls ‘mummy, mummy’ from the back seat, the other breathes a slow, sleep-filled breath. Stella del mattino plays and this is the moment I can snatch to write a poem, A moment I had not seen before.
Happy
On a day where we thought it would rain incessantly, and it did not, we drove out to a garden centre and watched the electric blue fish dart around their tank and said ‘hello’ to Bobby the parrot, who having hopped down from his perch, was walking around, dragging his tail feathers, pecking people’s shoes. ContinueContinue reading “Happy”
Home
As we travel back along the motorway with nothing in my head except for the buzz of the car, I can feel myself stretch and unfurl into the space that is before me. I think what next, and what of tomorrow, and what food do we have, and what can I cook for a change..
11th May 2011
11th May 2011 And the night after the frustrations, there is a clarity, like the first bite of a lemon cake or a gin and tonic, slipped down the neck. There is space for the first time in a long time. I am hair-washed, sitting in a house clean and dusted, with the stillness ofContinueContinue reading “11th May 2011”
9th May 2010
There we were in the park, me and you, our two babies, this older couple, two kids, their grandchildren (I assumed), and the sun beating down on us. You were happy, Sam, as you ran about in the long grass, pointed at the bugs on the bin, laughed at me through the windows on theContinueContinue reading “9th May 2010”
elisabeth pike 