Poems

In Memoriam
by Nickie Aven    2020

Wilfred Owen died aged twenty five,
unnecessary hero of a war
he neither chose nor wished for; his enemy
some German boys he played just once at football
on Christmas morning. Before he fell.
The bells would toll for Wilfred, justly so.
Samuel Rowntree died aged thirty three,
unnecessary casualty of a war
the British waged on China, for the right
to sell its people juice of sleeping poppy.
Vain did the Chinese plead to stop the trade;
the British pocketed their greedy funds and laughed.
But opium, like a spectral shadow followed
to British shores. Now centuries have passed,
illegal dealing and illegal profiting,
addicts here are bums, are scum, a scourge,
other than we, criminal, undeserving.
Instead, the respectable citizen gives his charity
to worthy causes, children, animals, the sick,
for veterans, buying poppies, paper poppies –
Lest we forget.

I think of the drug problem in the West and especially here in Britain, as a sort of ‘national karma’. We reap what we sow. The colonising, patriarchal British have immeasurably hurt people and exploited their lands, the pursuit of wealth and power made possible by a sense of superiority and entitlement and by ‘othering’ those of different colour skin, different customs, culture and religion, different gender or sexual orientation and different species. Separation is a misperception, mis-take (the original meaning of the word ‘sin’) and allows us to use, abuse, conquer and exploit the earth and its inhabitants, until our very existence is in question.

My deep wish is that we could carry greed, abuse and exploitation both past and present, consciously, to atone, to make amends, to connect again to our humanity and our earth in unity and appreciation.

Snow Fall

By Nickie Aven 2021

Snow fell silently last night.
Today the world is patchy white and cold.
There is no breath, no trace of wind;
trees stand statuesque, freeze dried.
Birds dart garden to garden hungrily,
calling, “There’s some right here”,
or, “This is mine, keep out!”
For some, this newly whited world is fun,
                                     exciting, magical, picture pretty.

For me, there’s something else, remembered.
Last time it snowed, you were alive,
not well but here,
your inner world new washed;
you wished to stay – I think –
as if potential death had opened life afresh.

Now I view the snow alone,
worry the car’s brakes will freeze and lock again,
fear to fall when walking with the dog.

My heart is heavy-warm and sad,
regretting little, longing much –
fruitlessly like empty trees,
without their hope.

Perhaps, if I ask them well,
they’ll lend me some of their’s,
lend me trust in the cycle of things,
in fruiting elderhood,
until that final winter
when the snow so thick
will cover all my tracks.

Now I am Alone   
by Nickie Aven 2020       

“I am alone,” she said, when her husband died, “ and because I am alone
I will put the bins out and bring them in again; I will clean out the compost bin.
Only I will cook and only I will eat it. Will I cook what I like or what is good for me – or will I cook at all?
I will no longer buy tomato ketchup or cheddar cheese; will half the housekeeping suffice?
Only I will clean – or not.
I will be the dog’s only person and at home if I do not talk to him I will talk to no-one.
I will lay and light the fire now and keep it going or be cold.
I will go to bed when I choose and take up all the bed, waking diagonally across it.
I will put the kingsize duvet on alone and spread my clothes out in the wardrobe.
“When I look at the shelves he built, at the drum he made, at the harp he encouraged me to play, at the shed he built  himself and loved – his sanctuary he said – at the ring upon my finger, will I feel more alone or less?
“When I talk to him will he hear me?
When I say yes to things will he see my courage?
When I paint the house will he like it?
When I buy that painting did he really want me to have it?
When I weep will he know?
When I can’t play the harp will he understand why?
Can he tell me how to mend the doors on his shed and which timber to get for the outdoor shelves I want to make?
Will I be sad for the rest of my life?
When I long for him is he longing for me?
Am I holding him back or is he holding me?
Will he mind if I move?
As time moves on will he exist only in my fading memory or am I taking us with me wherever I go?

The Road 
Nickie Aven 2021

What a road we walked,
                              my love and I:
Mountain passes we navigated well;
rivers we crossed, some raging some in song;
but always hand in hand,
                                     my love and I.
I trace my finger on the map,
                              alone now:
Each day another mountain on the road;
floods and dams, dry river beds of sorrow;
and always longing for,
                              my love and I

Grief is....
Nickie Aven 2021

Grief manifests in myriad ways, it's true.

Yes, tears and sadness, longing and regrets,
and even anger that you're left here in the mess
while they have got away, escaped scot free.
Your confidence is blown to smithereens,
reclusiveness becomes your only friend: 
why stand and chat to neighbours and pretend
when all you want to say's “They're dead, they're dead”;
but mostly they just cross the road instead.
At dinner time you turn on the TV
to make believe, “it isn't only me
inhabiting this room”, and soon you know
each storyline and clue from Monsieur Poirot.
The habits that they had become your own:
you stay up late, spend hours with your phone.
You take a bath when they did, way too hot,
could care less if it's every day or not.
And cooking, eating, what's the point of that?
Unless it's chocolate. But thin or fat
who cares, because, it's only you, still you.

Grief finds you out and trips you up, it's true.

Their shoes upon the shoe rack – or they are not;
you come across a letter you forgot,
you see their script, the way they signed their name,
you kiss it, weeping to be close again.
The book they read, the mug they used, their socks,
the ordinary things that seem to mock
your sanity; and yet, another day
they blur into a monochrome of grey.
There's no-one now to make a cup of tea
or anyone to make one for, “just me”;
no-one to take your part when the world is rough,
no-one to hold you close when the going's tough.
The only one whose comfort you now need
is the one who's gone, the very one you grieve.
“I'll tell them this”, but they're not there to tell;
for just a  moment you forgot and fell
lurching into absence, losing ground
howling loudly or folding with no sound.
And when eventually you get to bed,
the bed's too big, too cold; you lay your head
next to their pillow, call them by their name,
but silence answers – always it's the same.

Yet grief is kind, strange to say but true.

A necessary darkness, bleak cocoon,
a winter of the soul, a waning moon.
“Get over them... move on... time heals”, they say.
Pay no attention, that is not grief's way.
Re-shape yourself, go quietly, go slow,
test the ground, tread softly on the road;
stay close in, tending your weary self,
have only those you trust to lend their strength.
Love your beloved still, it serves you well;
only an open heart can ever heal.
One day you'll use their mug or see their shoes
and know it's ground you've gained not ground you lose;
and when you call their name through quiet tears,
the silence will feel full, as if it hears.
The sadness never leaves but gently glows, 
a hint of dawn as darkness slowly goes.
Your trees may still be bare, no flowers on show,
it seems unlikely yet that joy could grow;
but in the soil green shoots just peek above,

truly grief is the other face of love.

I walked through the wood
Nickie Aven  2025

I walked through the wood
and I minded the chill and the rain,
heard the cackle of winter,
saw her bony finger, cruel in its beckoning.

So I sat on my friend the tree and I said,
“Do you mind the rain?”
She sank the toes of her roots deep in the earth
and she drank.
And I knew,
she didn't mind the rain.

“Don't you mind this hot sun we've had?” I said.
She stretched her leaves and I found at my feet
a little nut no longer green,
fit to take root, fit to be food.
And I knew,
she didn't mind the sun.

“Well then”, I said, “surely you mind the wind,
for look, once upon a time it knocked you over?”
I watched her four trunks that once were branches
standing side by side,
their own branches dancing in the wind,
leaves singing as they fluttered to the forest floor;
and I looked and saw the soil was thick with leaves of generations.
And I knew,
she didn't mind the wind.

“Soon you will be naked,” I said,
“and you must mind the cold”.
I saw she would draw herself in,
prepare to read the stories written in her trunks,
prepare to rest, to sleep and dream of spring.
And I knew,
she didn't mind the cold.

So I walked through the wood, 
still minding – but not minding quite so  much – the rain;
the beckoning hand no longer cruel,
more an invitation into remembering,
an invitation into rest, to sleep and to dream
sweet dreams of spring.

Leaving the Garden
Nickie Aven 2020

I do not leave this garden willingly.
Through many phases of the moon
and many seasons of the forest
I travelled
to find its verdancy.

In late summer,
garlanded with roses my beloved brought,
I drank deeply from its wellspring.

Mountains encroached.
Now, flesh torn and staff in hand,
I step towards their seeming emptiness.

My lips are lonely
Nickie Aven 2025

My lips are lonely.
I feed them chocolate,
dark, very dark, intense,
velvet bitter sweetness
filling my mouth.
In the moment
the sensuous pleasure
satisfies.
Only in the moment.
The after taste
is as lonely as it ever was.