ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

One of my Grandbabbies needs an 'unpublished' poem for some project or other. I've had quite some fun 're-discovering' those of mine (that I had mostly forgotten about by now ) So I'm posting one serious & one humorous....at laaast! as I haven't had time to write new ones for a while. I hope you enjoy.....

"IN MY GRANDCHILD’S EYES"
(c)1999 Glenny Palmer

In my grandchild's eyes,
two pools of wonder full of "why's ?"
alive with mischief, wide with awe,
look up at me and offer more
than life itself could hope to prize;
the past and future there abide
in sanctity,
within my grandchild's eyes.

In my grandchild lies
the immortality we prize,
and all the love from ancient times
lives on amid the childish mimes
so true, my mother there implies,
and all I knew and loved of her
returns to me,
borne in my grandchild's eyes.

As my grandchild tries
to comprehend how childhood dies,
and seems to violate the heart,
transcending each and every part
of fledgling fear, the adult spies
a whisper of divine intent;
the path appears
before my grandchild's eyes.

When my grandchild flies
beyond this life to sacred skies,
and we are pledged to history's care,
the children of the child will share
the light, that yet within me lies,
bequeathed to all eternity
and held in trust,
inside my grandchild's eyes.

I really like your structure and unusual rhyme scheme in this poem, Glenny.

And what a whimsical take on the topic of "heredity" and perpetuating the memory of loved ones, past and present. I like the line about being "pledged to history's care".

When a good friend of mine lost his Dad a while back I wrote a poem for him, and I finished it with a similar thought of the father's characteristics perpetuated in the grandson ...

Then with the sweet remembrance of a Dad who's next to none
you'll turn and see him smiling in the eyes of your own son.

Cheers
Shelley

Thank you for your kind words Shelley.

This is why I like Maureen's workshops. The different interpretations that our poets craft on the very same subject, never fails to surprise and delight me. In this instance it seems that we have wandered along a very similar path.

Hi Glenny
I too love the different pattern of your poem, and particularly love the sentiment! (Being a Nanny, it touches chords!! ) thanks for sharing it.

We have just started a group here in Geraldton, and we are doing a topic/line for each meeting for anyone who chooses to do it. Our last one was 'The Memory Keepers Daughter sits, and thinks, and dreams'. The poem is to be around a one minute poem. I wrote one about a child watching her mother (The Memory Keeper) sharing her grandmothers stories back with her as she was dying, and the child listening to them, and taking them in. The line given was used as the last line to symbolise the child starting to learn the family stories for her to hold in years to come. I was writing it as I was at the group, read it out, then promptly lost it!! It was in a very rough form, but I was really looking forward to polishing it a little and now I can't remember it!!!! Ah well, they come (very infrequently nowadays!!!) and they go. Will have to wait for some more inspiration now!

Catchya
IRene

Beautiful, Glenny. With your reference to eyes, I couldn't help thinking of that little boy on the news recently, the one pictured sitting in an ambulance in Aleppo covered in blood and dust after his home had been bombed. I wonder what his eyes had seen. He rubbed his hand on his face, looked at the blood on his hand, and then rubbed his hand on the chair as if trying to clean it. And for a moment I saw our granddaughter, who has just turned two...

David