Poetry has been my friend and wise companion for over thirty years. My own poetry is a literary reaction to all that is around me – the natural world, human and animal behaviour, and personal life experiences. More recently, themes of emotion, life pressures, gender roles and societal narratives have filled my poetry notebook. I am currently curating my first poetry collection.  

Eyes wide
I smile
Inhale slowly
I say ‘click’ inside my head
Wanting to savour and retain it all
Click.
Oranges, blues, greys bursting
Touches of silvery outlines
Trees as totems,
Up lit, they are glowing
Click.
I raise my chin and eyes to the sky
Dizzy with beauty
Awake with peace

‘Aperture’ was inspired from watching my child gaze in amazement at the towering old growth trees on the east coast of Canada. This poem was awarded Best Adult Poetry in a local Arts contest. 

It stopped
My heart
Your breath

The line in the sidewalk
Crooked, red, dripping
Paralyzed and enshrined

Things moved in slow motion
No one knew what to do
There was looking, followed by looking away

It was supposed to be a rush
An immediate adrenaline filled push
Emergent precision, everything counting

I’m screaming now
This is not the end
This is not the beginning

I want the meantime back
The in-between, the waiting to,
The uneventful

The red line is still moving
Flowing, while you are still
A hurricane of the unacceptable

I am free falling
Watching the red become shielded in white
Begging for movement

Move
Move
Move

My poem entitled ‘Red’ poured out of me, as a way to process a horrific bicycling accident I witnessed in front of Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Canada.  This poem was also awarded Best Poetry in a local Arts contest. 

Sometimes I wish I was in that movie screen.
I’d pretend I’m heroine,
the one running along the beach looking beautiful.
The one everyone loves; everyone is worried about.
If I close my eyes tight enough,
I can smell the sea air and hear the waves roll in.
I can almost feel the sun pouring down.
I want to be the one who falls in love with the handsome hero,
who has risked his life to save me.
I wish my life could tie up so easily,
Like the end of a movie.
I would be forced to live happily ever after,
But instead, I am stuck on the outside
Just watching.

Two Hour Escape. A throwback to my sixteen-year-old self, written in high school for an English course called Writer’s Craft.