I have always loathed myself, and despite my arrogance and my bluster, I have always been humbled and astounded by the way I have been loved by three women at different stages of my life. 

When I was young and broken after the death of my mother, a great woman lifted me and loved me.  I met Adele about a year after my mother died. My brothers, my father and I were living in squalor and despair.

Adele provided me with a feminine influence that was so lacking in my life. She encouraged me to write, and shared a love of literature with me. She offered me a place to live and to write away from my broken home.  

Certainly these are naive little poems, but they are the first poems that I wrote with my heart, the first time a voice inside me seemed to whisper from beyond my volition.  They are soppy, weak and sentimental, but I won’t touch them, because they stand at the outset of my soul’s journey.  

I haven’t seen Adele in almost forty years, but I have recently reconnected with her on Facebook, and she is still kind and wise.  

Thank you Adele, for having lifted me up when I was sinking. I will always remember your kindness, and I will always love you.

This first poem describes watching Adele asleep.  I have always been profoundly moved by watching people sleeping.  I see a heartbreaking innocence in their faces, feel drenched in agonising love and compassion. 

You are all white thoughts
Wiping clear
The fear
The smudge of my dreams

What colour are your thoughts?
Is the voice as soft as yours?
I would paint them
Smooth curved
As the line
You're sleeping lashes run.

The next poem also describes watching Adele sleeping for the last time before I left her bed and her warm home.  I wrote this poem with great sadness when I understood that it would be many years before I could rest in love, and that I would need to betray the brief reprieve that she had offered me, in order to move ahead and forge my soul.  I felt like a thief in the night stealing away in the early morning with all of the love that she had given me.  I was not yet ready for contentment and love. Ah, life is so many days.

       A Stillness
You're sleeping face, day eaten,
Is too gentle even for fingertips.
It's sad weariness lies awake.
I wish you tender pillows
And go. Outside

Snow weighs on pines, 
Pins down the world.
Beneath a new chill
Lies last week’s melt.
Behind me, footprints remember.