Planning

If someone told me when I was a child that life’s journey is seldom a path you can foretell, I would most probably not have believed them. Things were so sure and in place, even when 'in place' was a view over the onderdeur (bottom half of stable door, our only door at the time) and the first spot from where I learnt to tell the time on the church tower. I should have realised then already we moved from there and as part of growing up I learnt to move, deal with death, make new friends and now... with lots of grey hair, I still sometimes yearn for things to be 'sure' and 'safe'.

Manifesto

Some hours on my hands
Gave me a chance
To write
A plan-of-action
What to do
Over the next
Year or more
Daily tasks
Keeping score
Fighting time
Delivering ‘products’
Reading up-to-date
Shy of becoming
A gossip and bore

Some years under my belt
Experience good and bad
Poor decisions sad
Happy moments
In snapshots captured
Senses
With simple flavours enraptured
Climbing trees
Nurtured
Scraped knees
No notebook
Can ever
Trap these

Some worries on my mind
Will I
A final place of peace
In this world find
Love and grace
In heart and soul a place
Offspring
Beat the growing race
Elders
Accept my grown-up fate
Life
Dreams
Wishes
Still have in every heart
A place

By Simone Beatrice Naik Noemdoe, 2011-08-02