NaPoWriMo 2025 (part III)

Days 8-11 of NaPoWriMo

Everyone

This world is made for you, and me, and everyone

The great, the small, the rich, the poor, and everyone

A cityscape of steel, and trees, and concrete

The comfort of a living space for everyone

Fields of wheat, and strawberries, and apple groves

A healthy, and a filling meal for everyone

Time ton cry, and time to laugh and celebrate

For joy, and love, and grief is felt by everyone

A world divided is no use to anyone

A world united is the peace of everyone

Ducks

A path runs beside the hedgerows

Down towards the river flow

And towering hawthorns grow

Delicate flowers among their thorns.

The stone steps are worn

And yet your feet are sure,

Settled in the grooves of time,

Beneath ivy vines, and a foliage roof.

A pair of ducks, aloof, glide past

And the brief flash of minnows

Shine silver in the water below.

Mushrooms

A mottled mesh of mycelium

The metabolic metronome amongst

Aging roots and amber roaches

Rousted from the rotting homes.

Heather, hyssop, hyacinth,

And singing starlings, swooping

In the sun beams. Reams of leaf litter

Lain on lice and mice and ivy shoots.

Shaded scenes of simply summers,
Thrumming with the thirst for freedom.

Thistledown and hummingbirds,

And hope sits heavy in my heart.

But here amid the ancient agaric

Grasses glint with morning dew

And mushroom gills are golden gilt

With mottled marks of mycelium.

My own Changes

They say it takes time,

It's not a matter of pride

She had in her mind how your future unfurled.

You cut off your hair,

And changed what you wear,

She's not sure if you're a boy or a girl.

But pink birthday cards

And gendered words,

I struggle to see where the effort is made.

And over the years

It's becoming clear

That this is the way she always behaved.

I've bitten my tongue

And suffered her wrongs

But family only takes you so far.

She might never know

If I'm a boy or a girl

But I am who I am when you're ready to care.

NaPoWriMo 2025 (part II)

Days 4-7 of NaPoWriMo

My home is not a gallery

Hushed tones, and the whisper of shoes on marble,

Soft light glinting off gilded frames.

Safe, sterile, art at an arm's length.

But my home is not a gallery

I make it a celebration.

Dancing with my husband under a print of Van Gogh

And the strains of Vivaldi in the air.

An original: cat under a rainbow, in crayon, from my niece

Portraits, and photographs, and lino-prints

In dusty frames, and the curled, fading corners

Of posters, taped to the wardrobe doors.

The canvas from my year 10 art exam,

Its clumsy, bold colours are pride of place in

The living room, and each wall in my home

Begs for more.

A calm and frenzied life

Within the every day narration of

Your life, it is important to construct

From any source, a monument of love

To which no tender heart could object.

These brief departures from the tidy humdrum

Routines of your day, will elevate

The whimsy and the wonder that can come

From setting on the path of your own fate.

Deep within your bones you feel the yearning,

A hint of frenzy under every steady breath,

Vanilla scented moments in the mornings,

An honour on your future self bequeath.

So with each step, and with each strike begin

To shape a world that's ready to reclaim.

Spearmint

In river banks and marshlands

Wet soil underfoot, and moss green air.

That primitive feeling of leaves between your fingers

And you tug, not too hard

Don't pull out the roots.

The ice-clean scent stains your nostrils

And nearby a blackbird sings.

Then from the bracken ahead

A rabbit shoots forth, ears flat

He boings across a fallen log.

You set a single, toothed leaf upon your tongue

The taste of early mornings, and soothing tea.

Pink Moon

The magnolia blossoms first

Large white petals reaching up

Towards baby blue skies

Forget-me-nots and grape hyacinth

Light blue and dark

Amidst the tender green grass

The raspberries are coming

And will swell with sweet red fruit

Under an April Pink Moon

 

I caught a glimpse of tragedy

Yesterday, my father-in-law was driving us (me, my husband, and my mother-in-law) home from a holiday in France. We were somewhere on the M11 or the A1M, I don't really remember, and it doesn't even really matter.

There was a dead deer on the central reservation.

I've seen roadkill before, plenty of times, too many times to count. Hedgehogs, squirrels, the occasional fox, pigeons that couldn't fly out of the way in time. I mourn each one. The casual cruelty of traffic.

But this deer.

I don't know, there was something about her. I only saw her for a split second, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, but that moment felt life changing. Earth shattering.

There's so much I want to do for this world around me, and I have no idea where to even start. Even if I did, would I even be able to? Being disabled is so frustrating when my head and my heart are urging me to try and do spectacular things.

I remember reading about Wildlife bridges in the Netherlands, and instantly wondering why they weren't a thing in more places. A quick search tells me that the UK government briefly talked about trying to build some back in 2015, and it never really went anywhere. I want to rant and rave and shake the politicians by their shoulders and demand to know why this plan was abandoned. You hear chatter about the decline of native wildlife, isn't it such a shame about the red squirrels, and hedgehogs and badgers need protecting, and it feels like it's all just talk.

They're making paper straws, and charging for single use plastic bags, and it's all just small acts of greenwashing that hardly scrapes the surface of the changes that really need to be made. Rinse out your glass jars, and remember to take your reusable shopping bags, and ignore the dozens of private jets that flew into the G7 summit, and the seven nuclear reactors it takes to power google's AI assistant.

I can stop eating meat, and compost vegetable scraps, and only buy second-hand clothes, and it's a drop in the ocean, and I hate that I don't have the power to do more.

That shouldn't stop me from trying though.

Capitalism relies on every individual realising they can't make change by themselves, and not realising that together we are no longer individuals but a crowd; each drop in the ocean is part of the tidal wave.

"You'll see how much a snowflake matters when we become an avalanche" - Grace Petrie

This quote echoes in my head every time I start to doubt that what I'm doing can actually help. I am one person, and I am limited, and some days I can't even take care of myself, but I don't ever want to stop trying. I want the world to be a better place for me, and for you, and for the deer that shouldn't have to die, cold and alone on a stretch of tarmac cutting its way through her home.