Come rain or shine
The children of Penny Lane
Gather to play and while away
At Lady Madonna
Out polishing her front doorstep
Day by day
On her run down council tenement terrace house
She is so house proud
But expectant visitors never come
Nothing alive has crossed over
Since that letter was delivered
Notification her Husband and Son
Where alas no more
Casualties of war
Merely your country owes you a debt of gratitude sincerely sorry for your loss
With no body to repatriate nothing
to put in a coffin or bury she couldn't even
plan or mourn at their funeral
Eleanor Rigby
Where do they all the lonely people
Come from and go
God only knows the time and place
She was immensely house proud
mess not a single trace,
covers on furniture like a shroud,
Dust ….. oh my dare not show its face
Until…….
That day she fell over the vacuum hose
she lay on the floor in so much pain,
wishing, she hadn’t spotted the dust mote
knew her life wouldn’t be the same.
Had to sit there, her leg in plaster
looking at things that landed on her gleam.
A thin film of dust was straddling the furniture
so much so, she could write her name.
Then realised looking sparkling wasn’t the answer
dust was an item we could all live with.
Friends who called, how the room looked didn’t matter,
an out reaching hand of caring was what they could give.
Penned 19/03/2017
A good old duck, a mother hen,
a friend of Peter Rabbit; chased
Mr. McGregor out of the garden:
the Flopsy Bunnies survive again.
She knew her ewes from her rams,
meticulous, house-proud in her way.
A hedgehog, a Mrs. Tiggy Winkle
every field mouse allowed to stay.
Cumbria and the Lake District
will never see her like again:
North country girl, illustrator,
storyteller with brush and pen.