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There are two people in your life
who will always be a part of you every day,
wherever you go, whatever you do-
one of those people is your father, your Dad,
your hero, your strength, the one who will protect you,
defend you, work hard for you all his life;
and the other is your Mother, your Mum,
the first vision of beauty and perfection you ever saw,
and if you are as lucky as me
the kindest, the most caring, the most wonderful,
and the most amazing woman, and role-model,
you will ever be lucky to meet or ever know.
Our parents are the reason we are even alive
and kicking in the first place,
and if it were not for them we would literally
never have been born;
our parents saw our first moment, our first blink,
our first smile, our first adventure into unexplored territory
when we first set out on our own,
even if at first it was merely an exuberant crawl.
Our Mothers always know us better than we know ourselves;
our Mothers always want the best for us;
our Mothers always have an instinct
about what the next thing is going to be to come out of our mouths;
our Mothers always know all the names of the trees in our forest.
The best Mothers in the world would walk over hot coals for their children;
the best Mothers in the world would, and do, sacrifice anything
and everything else for their treasured offspring;
the best Mothers in the world would lay down their life for their child
in front of an oncoming train;
the best Mothers in the world would consider, and do consider,
the life and the happiness of their family their top-priority,
and they embrace every second of being a Mother,
and they love all the joy that honour, privilege, and gift, brings.
My Mum is smart, beautiful, fantastic, and true of heart;
my Mum is vibrant, special, funny, amazing, and unlike anyone;
my Mum is my soul, my friend, my conscience,
and she will be forever as she has been from the start.
My Mum is the greatest Mother, because she is always caring for others
like she always has her entire life,
and I am so lucky to be her son,
and I am the luckiest man in the world
that my Mother is my Mum.
A little boy jumping in puddles,
a little girl kicking and tossing
a collection of leaves on the ground-
the joy in their faces,
the pure excitement in their bodies,
is exhilarating to see and to witness;
just as it is brilliant to see a child
be encouraged and compelled to be excited
by their parents, and not told off
for doing what they are doing-
being a kid.
A child has a right to be free more than anybody
in discovering the answer to ‘If I do this, what happens next?’-
they might learn a valuable lesson
that will stay with them their entire life,
and depending on how their parents respond to them
at particular and important moments
will be the difference between them aspiring to be more,
see more, and experience more,
and walking the line of hope and trouble,
and knowing the value of something and someone;
whether it be an acquaintance, a friend, a gift,
a house, a sunrise, a rest, a cup of coffee,
a hand-hold, a look, a relationship-
just as they will always hopefully know
the true value of a hard-earned dollar, or a pound.
One of the best moments to witness
is when a child hears music for the first time,
and it instantly makes them dance, move,
and sing along to the lyrics
and replicate with complete accuracy all the right
choreography and dance-moves, words,
and the inflections of the artist
who is the author of the song they are hearing,
and it truly moves them like no other form
of communication of any kind.
Children love to express their profound joy
and overwhelming passion for life in every way-
whenever they can, wherever they can, with whoever they are with,
and they never hold back, unless they are stopped in their tracks
by something they have never seen before,
and then the expression that you see on their face
is absolutely priceless:
it’s like a mix of wonder and confusion,
bliss and captivation;
something new to a child, like a new song,
is like magic to them, and they don’t mind listening to a song,
or seeing something, over and over again.
They say that we lose much as we grow up, get older,
and sometimes we forget the pure unadulterated enjoyment
and the thrill of exposure of our inner-self
and our untempered emotions for all the world to see-
because we are so worried about what other people
will think and who society, for all its good,
tells us we aught to be-
a child doesn’t have that,
a child doesn’t need that,
a child should have boundaries,
but not those that will stop them
from doing from doing the impossible,
from overcoming and clearing the fences
that can threaten to restrict their metamorphosis too much.
A child doesn’t need to be told what they can’t do,
they need to be shown and encouraged in the things they can do
and will do;
a child can grow up anywhere
and as long as they have what they need when they need it,
a child can and will change the world-
it happens everyday, it has happened everyday of human history-
whether that child is born into poverty,
doesn’t have all that every other child they go to school with has;
whether that child is deaf, physically or mentally challenged, or blind-
any and every child can be something amazing and someone spectacular,
as long as they are surrounded by love and support,
and while they are a child they are allowed to be free,
discover, and be who they want to be,
and can make every moment of their lives
an important part of their play time.
Sitting in the park on a beautiful morning,
surrounded by light, life, and sound,
what I am doing feels life-reaffirming,
what I see is phenomenal, stunning, inspiring-
everything feels new, fresh, original, one of a kind,
never been seen before, bright, beautiful, pulse-racing, exciting.
I don’t want to leave.
I don’t want it all to fade-away.
I don’t want to take anything for granted.
I don’t want this to just be another day.
It doesn’t have to be, not if I don’t want it to-
not as long as it is all about the me and the you.
Everyone walks though life at different speeds.
Everyone lives different lives with different needs.
In the city, I see people of all ages and nationalities going about their day:
students coming to and from university,
smart-dressed men and women commuting to work,
children with a day off from school enjoying the sunshine-
as they smile, run-around and play;
kids discovering things with their parents,
parents discovering things about their kids-
from where I am, I see and I embrace
what they will probably never remember or think about
until they get older;
those moments that define a child and a parents relationship with each-other.
It is really nice to see and to read the under-lying language
that only a member of the same family is fluent in and privy to-
those looks and expressions that only they know the meaning of,
which if you are an on-looker it is like a foreign-language,
or a code that you can never know.
You don’t realise how precious time is until you get older
and you see the people and the places that you remember
change beyond recognition;
you don’t realise how much you miss
until someone reminds you of something that you shared together,
that meant so much to you at the time,
but unfortunately got filed-away in the filing-cabinet of your memory-
now only a snap-shot of a moment, which you never meant to ever forget
but which fades over time like an old photograph-
that can be brought back to mind and life
with the help of only the smallest of reminders
and enjoyed again, if it is a good memory,
of a time in your life that you always want to put-away
and rediscover again over and over on a sunny day.
Every day I see someone I have never seen before-
even in places that I have been to a hundred times,
or down roads that I have walked down more times than I can remember.
I see a new face- I see the beginning, the middle,
or perhaps the last chapter of someone’s story-
and every time I share eye-contact with a new person
I cannot help myself from wondering who they are,
who they will be-
I do not judge anyone by how they appear,
because to everyone- even those who you think you know-
there is always more to see.
I cherish the little things about people and about life,
I adore the moments that people freely throw-away without a second thought
that tell you about them- a story that they recite to themselves
when they fall asleep at night.
Sitting seemingly alone on a bench, on a hill,
in a park of untouched green grass,
looking out, looking up, looking within,
I have a moment of ponderance,
and in silence I think about the story that I am writing,
the legacy that I am leaving;
why I am who I am;
why the people and the things that I care so much about
mean so much to me;
why even though I have no one beside me I am not alone-
what that means, and why that is so important to remember.
All my life music has meant the world to me-
from birth, and forevermore, music of every voice, style, and tempo,
has seeded and grown in my mind like a tree.
All my life I have grown to love, cherish,
and make music a part of my daily routine-
music binds the days and the years,
and allows me to feel the memories of my life
and to understand there meaning.
My love of all music was gifted to me early on when I was a child-
my parents were the best: every night I would lie in my bed
and fall asleep to music and voices that made me dream and made me smile;
however, because I was so young, I didn’t understand the music’s beauty,
I didn’t understand it’s power-
I didn’t understand the images that my imagination created from the sound, that glowed, and grew, and awakened my creativity fire.
Every Sunday evening, my Mum and Dad would sit down with my sister and I,
and we would listen to my parents record collection:
gorgeously packaged black discs-
grooved and ingrained with some of the most incredible music of human creation;
songs about everything: love, heartbreak,
the past, the present, the potential of the future,
songs of dreams that are important to nurture.
My parents played songs that made me laugh,
and songs that made me cry:
one song in particular, Clannad’s beautiful ‘Theme from Harry’s Game’-
from the instant that I heard the first note,
and throughout the entire song,
my eyes would be like twin waterfalls;
but why I was crying, I knew not why-
even at such a young age, the profound beauty of the song
overwhelmed me, made me feel something, haunted me,
as it still does to this day-
the song that gets more and more beautiful to me with every play.
Over the years, my Dad would listen to Mike Oldfield,
The Beatles, John Lennon, and he would would say to me,
with tears in his eyes, that one day “you will listen to this on your own,
and you will love it as I do- because you and I are the same;
but, unfortunately, as I got older, all that I wanted to do was play video games.
Then, one Sunday, while my parents were out of the house for the night,
when I was about sixteen-years-old, alone in my room,
my Dads words spoke to me, and compelled me to fill the silence,
and give in to a truth that I could no longer fight.
So I went downstairs, opened my parents record cabinet,
took out and un-sleeved a vinyl LP called “Imaginations”,
I put the disc on the turntable, lowered the needle,
and then I stood in silence, in the darkness, with my eyes closed,
as the music that echoed from the speakers of the stereo
unified explanations, generations, and gave rise to revelations.
It all made sense, the universe made sense:
music, dreams, nature, words, voices, colours, began to condense-
I felt like life had come full-circle,
and that I now understood
everything;
however, this new enlightenment only made me ask new questions of life
that came to me like a flood.
As I have grown older, I have begun to realize more and more
that my connection and my love for beautiful music
has gifted me a great many of the treasures that I see everyday,
and for which I am unspeakably grateful for:
my friends, my music heroes, my favourite songs, musicians, singers-
like BT, and the beautiful Kirsty Hawkshaw.
I do not make music, but music is a part of me.
Music always will be what wakes me to invite in a new day;
music always will be the friend to assure me that everything will be ok.
My family are not musicians, but music is a part of us.
Music is what brings us together, music helps us dream,
music is what makes us feel free-
whenever I hear a piece of music, or a song,
that takes a hold of my heart and my mind,
so much so that I cannot express what it means to me in words,
I always think back to when I was a boy,
sitting down with my parents, in our home,
enjoying the wonder of a Sunday Symphony.
Whether near, or far away-
Family is the gravity that binds everyone together like clay;
from Homo sapien hunter-gathers, to our present day society,
Family is the spice of life that is also known as variety;
Family is a connection to one another that is literally not skin deep,
Family is the language that you can speak to each other while still asleep;
Family is a love that vibrates from your DNA,
Family is a game that you don’t need to know the rules of how to play;
Family is where you return to when the path of your life twists and turns;
Family is the teacher which everyone looks to, listens to, and learns;
Family is the sail that rides the winds of the good times and the bad;
Family is the love that is constantly reciprocated by your Mum and your Dad;
Family is a touch, a feeling, an indistinguishable and necessary part of me-
to me, above all else, there is nothing like Family.
The Life, the Light, the Tears, of the Poet of the Sphere 