Category: Survival

Scars…

On By jovisgoesIn Health, Life, old age, Personal, Survival, Thoughts, Time3 Comments

He looked in the mirror at the map of his life
Covered in scars from the surgeons’ knife
A line down the centre from a life-time ago
Faded, but hideous, from a time of his woe.
The scar on his leg was from ankle to knee
Not something he’d ever expected to see
There’s cuts on his wrists and backs of his hands
Where the cannulae went in attached to drip stands
But all that remains are the bits of scar tissue
Nothing at all, not really an issue.

We all have these scars, they mark who we are
Some can’t be seen, there’s more hidden by far
But they serve to remind us that we aren’t alone
We all need help sometimes, we’re not on our own.

There’s another impressive scar on his head
But if it wasn’t there, he’d surely be dead
The same with the others, they’re ugly old things
But they mark off the years, in the way of tree rings.

©Joe Wilson – Scars…2015

We thought we were indestructible…

On By jovisgoesIn Illness, Life, Loss, Love, old age, Poetry, political, Poverty, Poverty, Survival, Thoughts, TimeLeave a comment

We thought we were indestructible
That the world was ours to grasp
It was clear it was the old ‘n’  incorrigible
Who’s breath came out in a rasp.
 

And so we lived our comfortable lives
Thinking mainly of ourselves and our own
Getting the best cars to fit in our drives
Making certain our lawns were all mown.
 

We only applied for the very top posts
Believing, as we did, we’re the best
Entertaining bosses as such perfect hosts
We really were promotion obsessed.
 

Then one of you is ill, you’re pulled up dead short
It makes you evaluate your life
You start to resent being one of your sort
The thought cuts your soul like a knife.
 

As time passes by you realise you do care
At the way of the world and the hurt
The way that the rich have far more than their share
While others look for food in the dirt.
 

Perhaps though, most of us go through this change
When the blinkers finally fall from the eyes
We recognise that apathy is wrong and so strange
It’s the time we start hearing sufferer’s cries.
 

Soon your own health gets you into the time-frame
Where your sneezes and wheezes start to count
And you worry that things will never be the same
And are you warm and eating the right amount!
 

You realise you’re far from indestructible
As your breath come out in a rasp
But for you life is ever so precious
And you’ll hang on with your dying gasp.

 
©Joe Wilson – We thought we were indestructible…2015

It isn’t ours…

On By jovisgoesIn Homo-sapien, Life, Nature, Poetry, Point of View, Survival, The World, Time, vital, wisdomLeave a comment

Has man ever really stopped and looked
at all the beauty that Nature has cooked
arrayed throughout the world to see
by stumbling humans like you and me.

Deserts filled with shifting sand
moved by winds and Nature’s hand
creating dunes of epic scale
compared to this we are so frail.

Rill and brook, stream and creek
all a river’s end they seek
as they head for oceans wide
moving always with the tide.

Filled with fish of every size
sometimes caught for dinner’s prize
and on their trek it’s life or death
they struggle on for every breath.

Through the forests these rivers flow
passing trees whose names we know
they’re the lifeblood of our world
new breath with every leaf unfurled.

Too often though we cut them down
turning green land into brown
and yet somehow there are still flowers
grown by Nature’s greater powers.

They brighten days in glorious hues
so many colours, too many to choose
in meadows watered by rivers’ flow
past those trees whose names we know.

And on to seas with sharks and whales
the mighty Blues with their giant tails
whose flukes are wider than football fields
what majestic beauty the ocean yields.

To care for our planet we would do well
it’s a living thing not just a shell
it isn’t ours to destroy and maim
it’s future health should be our aim.

©Joe Wilson – It isn’t ours…2015

The trawlerman’s wife & the 1953 spring-tide disaster…

On By jovisgoesIn Fate, Loss, Poetry, Survival, TimeLeave a comment
Flood
Mablethorpe 2 Feb 1953

 

A little dot of light in the distance
Signalled that they were on their way home
She was waiting at her own insistence
As the trawler drew closer through the foam.

Her man had taken another man’s place
And he sailed with yesterday’s tide
But their baby was due in only three days
She wanted him back on dry land by her side.

It caused her to reflect on her father
He’d been lost in the’53 spring tide
That had raced down the east coast of England
Brushing trawlers and ferries to one side.

They called it ‘The Big Flood’, it was really that bad
It happened unexpectedly
Two and a half thousand, including her dad
Were drowned and swallowed by the sea.

January thirty-first into February one
The storm raged like no other before
Then it turned out to sea and was suddenly gone
Leaving death and devastation in it’s maw.

The trawler was pulled into the harbour
And her husband jumped the jetty and ran
He took her into his arms and she worried no more
He was home, he was safe, and her man.

 

©Joe Wilson – The trawlerman’s wife & the 1953 spring-tide disaster…2015

The winter struggle…

On By jovisgoesIn Fate, Life, Mammal, Nature, Poetry, Survival, Winter4 Comments

Winter creeps across the land
where mighty oaks and birch trees stand
and insects hid beneath the ground
face certain death if they are found
by mice or rats…and foxes too
nature’s food chain survival glue.

But up above the canopy
buzzards hunt by two or three
they square the ground on high patrol
in search of rabbit or tasty vole
life’s bitter struggle is borne this way
the same tomorrow as yesterday.

And as the winter creep moves on
the weakest creatures now all gone
rats and rabbits…mice and voles
bed down for winter in food-stocked holes
yet o’er the land where we draw breath
there’s barely sign of this fight with death.

 

©Joe Wilson – The winter struggle…2015