Today, we farewelled a very dear friend of mine, David, this poem is in his honour and with my love. 
 
Treasures of Gold
 
Hello Twinkles!
Man of dapper ware and lyrical tongue.
Which pinpoint insight into me will you launch in my direction today? 
Sword drawn, your open challenge to engage. 
Now with slightly mellowed whit, with age.
 
Front and centre focus
I’m the fish on your hook
Wriggling in the stirred water of our conversation
Dancing on my toes
Trying to bring your probe to a close.
 
But you never let me loose so lightly
As you care, with depth and love.
Your dare, to go where many others don’t.
You fish, you drill down, you pan for gold
Presenting your nuggets with a grin, as they unfold.
 
In turn, you ask for my counsel
So I unfurl my map, offered to smooth your ruffled mind.
With diplomacy shut out of the room
We trade honesty back and forth,
Sharing our truths
Our eyes, attention and words becoming balm to soothe.
 
My dear treasured friend
Man of mind, fragility and strength.
I’m gasping for air at the sudden swift loss of our known regular constant.
The door is shut firm, it is gone.
 
Thank you.
For decade upon decade with an open ear.
I will keep you near, my David-dear.
And in my mind
You will find
Our treasures of gold.
These I shall closely hold
For you and me to keep
And to share with you when you visit me in my sleep.
Come soon.  Please.
Rest, dear friend, it’s good you’re now at ease.
And if you’re looking down from above
Know that, by many, you were deeply loved.

Are you up? 
Are you down?
Are you mobile? 
Are you around? 
Do I have space to be? 
Or do I need to see
What needs to done
In this moment I'm free.

I'm exhausted 
In body
I'm confused 
In mind 
But I keep looking to find 
The strength 
To be, to see, to plan...

To simply, breathe.

Oh you wicked life
You've dealt your card
You've cut right through 
Our burgeoning hearts. 
You're cruel, you're mean
We didn't see
The space we had, 
When we could just be.

Now it’s:
Medical kit
Appointments galore
Restrictions 
Contradictions 
Redactions 
And action.
Always, action.

I'm screaming for space
A slower pace
Grace
I'm struggling with 
Energy
Balance
Conflict in needs
Planting seeds
Of hope, instead of fear. 
I'm here. 
I want to be here 
I'm clear.
My love for you 
Will keep me always here and near.

So. Today. Our lives are different. 
I need to find the good. 
I've now understood
That life is precious 
It's raw
It hurts
It's beauty is flawed
But it has a new law.
Live. Love. Today. 
We may not get more. 
I love you with every claw 
Of my fingers 
Trying to close the door
Against the tide and the roar
Of my pain. 
It's insane.

I love you 
I want the best for you. 
My heart bleeds 
With seeds of desperation
To find reason 
In this season of confusion 
That has become
So precious. So precious.

Today. We have today. 
Live that way.

Give way. 
Play. 
Stay
In the moment. 
It's my only way 
To make sense of 
Each precious, precious Day.

I hope I can do this. 
I'm trying to do this. 
Please be patient while I try. 
I can't lie. 
This is hard. 
I'm relaxing my guard
To be human. 
We're both human
Struggling. 
I have no more delusion. 

In this new life 
Full of strife 
We have today. 
Only today. 
I'm trying to live that way.
​
I love you. ​

My heart sings with the possibility of opening fully
Drawing in nature’s rapture through the smiles, sounds, touch and breath that surround me - like a newborn skin.

Beauty envelopes my soul with vibrance
Warm, enriching, fulfilled
Flowing as a trickling brook over smoothed worn boulders and pebbles of past pain.

My body is the reciprocal and filter to receive
Soaking in the nourishment in which each breath sits.
Entwining and gently pulsing through my veins.
I am the river of the ingenious machine of life.

Gratitude rises through the pores of my skin
Resting and evaporating, to mix with the air of all living things.

All that I am bounces back through the mirror of my eyes
Pollinating each landing place of my gaze.
To be repeated in the chain reaction of all that is natural.

I am whole. I am everything. I am nothing. I am here. ​

​Hey dude, you construed  
To take me back to my pain
You hit me where it hurt.
Disempowerment.
 
Your act of violence
Won't stay silent
No violence will.
Empowerment.
 
I still feel your punch
In my back. You're attack.
It brought it all back.
 
F***  it's not right
To be attacked
For any reason: 
Whether quietly hidden or seen.
 
F***  I won't take it from anyone
It's a trigger that flips me
Like a mouse trap
It so takes me back.
 
How does a person stop the damage
Ongoing. 
There's a huge difference between being a victim, passive
And recognising the signs, active.
 
I feel no sympathy for you. None.
I exist and stand equal with others.
You will not take away my power
To stand tall, to be visible.
 
I will not tolerate violence.
Of any kind.

I seem to have a talent for doing silly things; please feel free to add any for which you've shaken your head in disbelief (like I have) or had a laugh at my expense!  Here are 20 that I can think of.  Thank you for your patience with me dear family and friends.

1. Leaving the plastic covers on the magimix (mixer) blades when preparing for a dinner party for 16, resulting in us all picking plastic out of our mouthfuls.
2. When in economy on an international flight, passing a (rude) written joke - with my business card, through a flight attendant, to a well known comedian, in business class, only to totally panic at the stupidity of it (the action, not the joke) with visions of him presenting my business card and his 'experience' on his TV show. I pushed my way past flight attendants in to business class, found him, and stood, jabbering apologies, to which he replied "I didn't think the joke was very funny either".  Ouch!
3. On Christmas Eve, in casual scruffy clothes, bra-less, whilst holding a senior position in a well known bank, finding a beetle on the floor and walking around the Executive Floor asking anyone that happened to be working if they had a window that opened.  The COO, the CFO both looked at me as if I were mad.  Which I probably was.  I went down in the lift and let it out to the fresh air.
4. Attempted murder of goldfish in my care (by mistake) and trying to call their owners on holiday to ask for advice.  Unfortunately, the phone line for the holiday location was via Perth police station who insisted I told them why I needed to reach my friends; I don't think they'd had an admission of murder of goldfish before.  They put me through to the location and unfortunately I woke the policeman’s wife, who also insisted I explain why I needed her husband (at 6am).  She kindly told me how to look after the fish. 
5. Running, literally, for a train in England, to connect to a plane to Australia, with my long skirt hitched up around my waist and shouting 'stop that train'. It stopped.
6. Calling The Fire Brigade because I could smell gas in my house. They came, informed me that I'd left the oven on with no flame.  Trying to redeem myself, I proudly told them that I had closed all the doors.  They reminded me (remember this): you close doors for a bomb, and open them for a smell of gas.  
7. Putting pictures up with a rolling pin because I didn't have a hammer, and then wondering why dough had hole marks when I rolled it out.
8. As a retail assistant, serving a gentleman and his friend to find a lovely dress for his wife.  I showed him a lovely low cut evening dress and asked, tactfully, if his wife was OK not wearing a bra.  He replied "She has to, she's over 45" to which I blurted out, without thinking "excuse me, I'm over 45 and I don't always wear a bra".  They both turned and looked at me.  I don't think they needed that information.
9. Saying to a retail customer that she looked like a carpet ... after I'd suggested the dress she was wearing.  I changed it to something in which she didn't look like a carpet.
10. Cleaning the loo seat with a bleach product and then wondering why the back of my thighs came up in big red painful welts.
11. Trying to pack a dress in an A5 Special Delivery bag.
12. Pulling, what I thought, was a light switch chain when staying at a friend's house, only to have it come off in my hand and fall down the plug hole.  It turned out to be decorative feature, matched by the light aside it. So I undid the u-bend wondering if it would flood, found it, put it back ... whilst panicking and sweating with fear ... and told them six months later.
13. Trying to play a CD in a DVD player (more than once).
14. Not knowing how to play the TV at a friend's house, so managing to un-tune the whole thing and not be able to get it back.
15. Bursting in on a (topless) lady in the changing room with a dress I enthusiastically wanted to show her, when working in retail.
16. Walking through the bar in the restaurant with both dogs on leads in a summer dress and wellies, to be looked up and down by a customer and told "I can't imagine you working in corporate".  I took that as a compliment.  
17. All of us looking for a dress for half an hour in the shop, only to remember that I had sold it.  
18. Adamantly and indignantly stressing to Cannon that I had NOT dropped my camera and that it was faulty, insisting I be sent a new one (which I was) to be informed by a friend that I HAD dropped it, in her company.  I'd forgotten.  
19. Locking myself out of my house in Sydney, in my nightdress at 10.30pm and walking to the Police Station and asking them if they could please let me in.  They gave me a phone to call a locksmith.  
20. Driving with my family, looking for a location and enthusiastically saying “look it’s only 30 miles away now”.  After they had stopped laughing, they reminded me that it was a speed sign: 30 miles an hour.  

​Today
 
Today my world changed
A shackle came off my heart.
Despite not being directly affected
My being opened up …
To liberty.  To hope.  To humanity.
 
Today is momentous.
Today my heart is warm
Bubbling with excitement
Brimming with friendship
To all people, who should all be equal.
 
Today surely, the world will grow.
Edgily, imperfectly sometimes; but forward.
We breath a sigh of relief
We smile with twinkling eyes
We hug and see within people
 
Today.  People gay, straight, whatever, whoever
Come together
In a public and legal recognition
Of human rights.  Of liberty.
Of recognition of human connection.
 
Today will never be like yesterday
People of the same gender can EXPECT
To be treated as equal, instead of hope
You are equal.  We are equal. 
Today, I’m proud of the world I live in.
 
What a strong, positive statement when so much in our world is wrong.
Today, a wrong was put right.
Today.
What can be achieved tomorrow?