YOU ARE ONE YEAR OLD
TODAY!
You peer
into your mother’s amber eyes, rocked
in your father’s
muscle, feel their deepest love, and start to grow.
Suckling
and sleeping; dreams like clouds cross your countenance,
you
whimper, frown and smile.
In your
crib; you stare at the morning light bouncing off miles of old Thames flow creating
waves on a ceiling flickering like a black and white movie.
Out in
your buggy; poodles, clowns and bears act out their sky stories.
Sycamores
scatter their autumn leaves, robins chirp, aeroplanes fly high.
You feel
the chill of coming winter on your ruby cheeks,
and smell
the odour of a season changing, and so are you.
You rub
your fist on Tadcu’s stubble, pull off the Elder’s specs,
explore
new textures of rough, bristle, hard, the joy of rustling paper,
contrasting
the silky warm nectar of your own milky way.
You socialise
with your chums; Elliot, Rufus, Maia and others from NCT.
You are a
regular at Starfish Swim, Bumps and Babies, Storytime,
Baby Music
and Babbling Babies.
You’re a
real Music Monkey. You open your mouth, pull back your tongue and find your
voice. Like an archer you project a tune cross the room on a whale-bone scale,
drum a beat. Granj repeats and reflects your notes.
Our raw
duet sears the quiet-still of a river mews.
You sit up
straight in your high chair; you eat Weetabix, sweet potato mash, yoghurt and
finger-food. When you’re done you shake your head exclaiming like De Gaulle to
the British wanting entry to the Common Market, ‘Non,non, non!’
You can
kick a ball, hold a spoon, play the xylophone, lay out your toys and knock them
down. At night time the tooth fairy wakens you with gifts of two and two more
little pearls.
Spring and
early summer come; the world is warming.
You stand
up and are on the move; you walk with a helping hand.
You crawl
backwards a bit, then fast forward like Popeye’s Pee Wee on a mission; opening
cupboard doors, turning keys, closing books, pulling stuff from shelves, and
laughing.
You watch
the world and smile until the world turns round,
and the
world smiles back.
HAPPY
FIRST BIRTHDAY,JOE!
9 August
2016
A Granj
Poem (2)
