Storms and seals

In the Manor House
loose window frames
rattled through the night
cheating me of sleep;
taking me back to the fiercer time
of feuds and quarrels
among the clans
and life was cheap

Next day in the calm
that usually follows a storm
black seals bobbed their heads like bouys
or lay camouflaged on wet rocks,
their whiskered faces wise
with secrets of the deep
never shared with humans.

From 'Let me take you to the Island' a Rathlin Island anthology, Ballycastle Writers Group 2001 page 23

Mothers

Human sponges mothers soak up hurts
Filling their innner space
With family tensions fears
Wounded egos to be nursed
Within an emotional embrace
Saturated bursting into tears
Frayed nerves overwrought
Tolerance stretched and thinned
Striving to be fair but caught
'Tween the finely tuned and thick skinned

A sponge without it's watery soul
Shrivels and grows hard
No longer functional or whole;
Mothers go on absorbing
It's the nature of their role.

From Ring of Voices edited by Anne Lambert ISBN 0 948154 91 8 1996 page 55