When I got around to finding facts about you Graça

you had been one of my heroes for decades, but I was

amazed to know you were younger than me, just eighty!

I have taken 84 to do so much less. Your years are weighty

With achievements: taking the Mozambique Primary School

Attendance from 40% to over 90% in your political rule

As minister of Education; First Lady of Mozambique while

Your husband was alive; The UN asked you to compile

Out of your experience, “Children Involved in war” that deals

With kids made to kill; you helped to make women visible

As citizens, freeing them from marriage when children, setting

Up The Graça Machel Trust to continue your unfettering

Of children and women throughout Africa.And you endured

to become an Elder, bringing common sense to human

folly. Your years are hung with trophies and honours. But

what fixes you in my heart are the years of no mounted

memories when you were married to a man who found

that being a marxist ruler made enemies you were bound

to kill, to whom disloyalty meant death, whose state

fought child soldiers with child soldiers. It is too late

and disrespectful to ask questions about what you thought

and said and did then, but in the thinking of much wisdom,

the saying of much love and the doing of much goodness

you will have asked these questions with your own shrewdness

and learned your truth, which shines the brighter for having

a little shadow to set it off, for me at least. If only mine was as

small a shadow and as encompassing a light, my sister, Graça.

How to express my affection for you, as you speed

from your nest, a shallow dip in the rock, to scream

with other terns as you hover, twist and drop to catch

fish for your chick amidst waves, sun, wind and snatching

beaks and you”ll stick that red dagger into anyone

that threatens the chick, however large. Your feminine

powers are not limited to child-rearing but include

charting a track down Africa towards the fast-food

winter paradise of Antarctica where the sun shines

24/7 to help you hunt. In your 30 year lifetime

you’ll fly roughly 1.5 million miles, through all weathers

over every terrain, making you the most travelled

of all creatures and one of the toughest,although

also one of the most beautiful with your snow-

white tapered wings and tail. You challenge my

sorry-for-myself mood- I’m -not -sleeping, why-

am -I -depressed, my -wife’s not -well, I’m getting-

old- “Soft thing,” you tell me, “my first wetting

was the arctic sea at Spitzbergen, and I’ve flown the hot

edge of the Sahara. As for family, I’ve got

a mate back here in Spring, if he survives,

and young ones as they learn must risk their lives

each day. Last year I watched while one of mine

who made his first flight from the nest, looking to me, calling,

was taken by a peregrine. Only a feather in the air, falling.”

I was looking for organic oil online when I was given

argan oil, unknown to me but advertised as for the kitchen

so did a new search and found a challenging story. Akhsmou

a moroccan village, suffers persistent drought with few

days of rain and many of hot sunshine, meaning that 90%

of its water supply has gone and every crop that depends

on it, which has caused village people to leave for the cities

or abroad, but Fatima Ihihi,in her twenties, thought the fittest

use of her education was to start an employment project

for women in Akhsmou, that they should make oil from the fruit

of the Argan trees, which grew nearby in plenty. It should

have failed due to the reluctance of the women who were not

expected to take decisions or work outside the home, but it caught

on when a few tried it and found it fun. And received wages.

That’s all it took to subvert the religious culture of ages.

Women found it asked them to do things they were good at

gathering nuts, carrying nuts, separating kernels while sat

on rugs for hours, talking. Initially they used a big shed

shielded from the sun and the male gaze -as Fatima said

they became a team, proud of each other. And she was able

to get hold of an oil press, second hand at first; and so tasteful

was the oil, it earned them a loan from a large group

of cooperatives to buy the equipment they needed. Soon

they built their own workspace, with a nursery, a shop,

a pressing area, a bottling plant, establishing their co-op

which they called Toudarté, which means Life..Sometimes

they sing as they work, letting music rhythm and rhyme

express their joy in their creation of common wealth

and a future. They continue to create, Almost by stealth

they have added literacy classes, paramedics teaching

health for women, and a fund for going to Mecca. unleashing

the hidden riches of community, not as entrepreneurs

but fellow workers with different gifts and one shared power.

If you don’t want to go doolally

better watch what you swally

I worry that the offers of brain-function tests I get online

Are because AI knows I’m over 80 and spend more time

On my pad because I’m slower than I was. I would like

The reassurance but I’m scared to try. What if it said: Mike,

See your Medical Practitioner? That sends me to all the sites

That tell me what to eat and drink, and what not, to stay bright

Until I die. (My wife does crosswords to prove her brain’s ok

which works for her, but as I’m bad at them, they’d prove me dopey)

if you don’t want to go doolally

better watch what you swally.

So for a start it says, “Not more that sixteen units of alcohol

A week” and I reckon on half a bottle three days out of a whole

Seven, but my wife laughs and reminds me it’s three glasses of red,

Preceded by a couple of white. “Well, that’s still only fifteen if you add

It up.” And the aperitif you often drink before the meal, it doesn’t count?

Not to mention that you think a unit is a glass whereas the true amount

Is one and a half maybe two glasses.” I decide that I won’t promise

Anything; “I’ll think about that” I say, hoping I can give it a miss.

If you don’t want to go doolally

Better watch what you swally

Then there’s what I ought to eat and drink for brain health

Access to which will certainly depend on my wealth:

Clean Ginkgo Biloba Glycosides & Terpene Lactones.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil Organic but beware of phonies.

Berries, beans, nuts, whole grains, oily fish and root

Veg, Cook everything, avoid nice ultra processed foods,

But all this only works as part of a mediterranean diet.

I hope a Domino Italian Pizza counts as at least I’ve tried it.

If you don’t want to go doolally

Better watch what you swally

I’vegiven a whole stanza to the drink that improves IQ

It brought me up to politician level so it may not help you.

Beetroot Juice is the magic potion especially for oldsters

for with its oxide mediated vasodilation it bolsters

cerebral blood flow improving cognitive functionality

increasing social confidence and beneficial pality.

And in case this honest enthusiasm leads you to mock me,

There is a drawback: It purples your urine and your jobby.

If you don’t want to go doolally

Better watch what you swally

It does seem a lot of fuss to get your brain realigned

But mind is incarnate in body and body alive in mind.

A thought will move a finger, and a hand will feel a fact

so food is fuel for muscles and energy for synapses.

This partnership is the only intelligence we know

And AI less than half of it, however it may grow.

It’s also the only life we know-this spider hunts a fly-

And losing interest in food is when we start to die.

If you don’t want to go doolally

Better watch what you swally.

 

 

Eh, you’re worse than me, son!” This from a skinny old woman

Dropping bottles in the bins at Tesco. She had five, but true and

Admit it, I had more than twenty. “Yeah, but you’re binning them

Once a week; me, once a month,” I said. “Leear, you bring them

every Sunday afternoon, just like me.” “Right enough, Grannie”

I confessed, “So what’s your tipple, Gin, is it?” “Gin my fanny”

She chuckled, “it’s sherry, Bristol Cream, two glasses a day, I canna

Take more. But look at you, bottles of wine, it’s a wonder you’re able

To drive.” “So, you’ll turn down a lift home if I offer? “Maybe aye, maybe

No. it’s a while since a man offered me a lift home.” “If you’re no’

Past it, I am, so you’re safe enough,” I said. “Pity.” She said, “Sure,

It is no fun living on your own.” “Your man?” I asked. “Deid these ten

Years. A fireman, he got that mesothelioma. Terrible.Back then,

they’d no protection. Their hoods an’ gloves an’ capes had asbestos

in them to stop them burning. When they were called out, they’d toss

a coin for first use of the breathing apparatus. He kept working until

retirement although he had the illness ’cause work never killed

anyone, but his mates didna like it, as if he could pass it on. Same

with our own friends. Right enough, the cough would drive him insane

and make him howl like a dog. I prayed for him to die. Fucksake God,

I’d say, do it now. By the time he died, I didna pray any more. Ach it’s not

Good me talking like this to a stranger. It must be your face.” “Yeah

But you’re not a stranger now. Come on, I’ll take you home.” On the way

We were silent, but at her gate, I asked if I could pick her up next

Sunday with her bottles and take her to Tesco. “Na,” she said,

“many thanks, and you’ll probably think this is very strange,

But I’ve been a lonely old bitch for years and I dinna want to change”

 

She was being abused at home, so they put her for safety

Into a residential school in the Scottish borders where she

was abused physically and sexually through her teenage

Years by a man, whom only now she is fifty-one, she can

See found guilty of what he did to her and many others.

Michelle says that she is pleased with justice but still suffers,

Although she has had medical help for what has marred

Her: “You know what? The scars are right in the heart.”

 

Jack is a decent name but not as good as the name

He can’t remember, that was his before they came

And took him from his Inuit parents and gave him

To the McKenzies of Nova Scotia, honest but grim

In their determination to make him Christian. The state

Has paid him compensation but was quick to eradicate

His records. Grinding his teeth has made a graveyard

Of his mouth. You know what? The scars are right in the heart.

 

His bricklayer’s hands were always a dead giveaway

Although the rest of Tam was as feminised as you could pray

For, as a top surgeon had relieved him of his cock and

Balls, substituting a not-quite vagina which was neat. Mock

Breasts would never feed a baby but looked good. The new law

That said born a man therefore always a man, however flawed,

Instructed his hands to take a knife and slice his throat apart.

Messy. But you know what? The scars were right in the heart.

Since I was a child, I‘ve liked the viewpoint of the top deck

(I once saw a naked lady in an upstairs bedroom, with a naked

Man, she slightly less startling than him, what was that thing?)

And I am no less entertained by contemporary sightings.

Bungalows tend towards competition, like here it’s the number

Of cars in the driveway, but here now, the geometry of lawns, some

Formal others romantic in ambition, here again, hot tubs. A dog

Has shat in Tesco’s doorway and a female employee is not

About to obey an instruction to remove it, But now I can

See over the roofs to the firth, flushed red to the span

of the road bridge by the sun rising in a fine mist. The pilot boat

is carving its way downriver. I know that’s an oil rig in dock, I note

the attendant machines, but is it upside-down or right-way up?

One of this couple will leave from the bus station but now they prop

Each other in close embrace making a private place on the pavement

That everyone respects. Oh, the centre of town, my landmarks are ancient-

Where would I get a pint, buy a suit? Goodness, the Quakers are still there.

Near the Uni, I like that in deference to the intelligence of its customers

There is an Indian restaurant called “Indian Restaurant” and in deference

To upward mobility a Mortgage shop. I admire an enduring defence

Of civilisation, a noble sandstone library not yet abandoned. As we climb

The hill I glimpse a funeral on the graveyard slopes, a mime

Of tears and rain. Then a high point, a roundabout from which I overlook

 the Carse to Perth, where gracious hills enclose the river and a squall soaks

the grasslands, then I keep my appointment at Ninewells Hospital

where specialist nurses inject my eye with fluid that prevents loss of all

sight in that one. The other is blind. I’m glad that this is possible.

 

A video from Thailand grabs my attention, it’s from Phuket

 well-known for holidays but not advocating tourism

in this case. Rather, it’s about the Dugong. Until recently

due to extensive beds of sea-grass, Dugongs gently

browsing could be seen in the shallow waters of the bays

offering sight of a rare and beautiful animal named Sirenides

after the maidens said to sing to sailors. Less romantic

observers called it the Sea-pig, In fact an elephant quit

the land to become a sea-dweller adapting in a time

of spreading oceans to many parts of the world, now confined

to the West Pacific, where the human destruction of coastland

and pollution of waters is killing off the sea grass. It can’t

survive without it. It moves slowly, head down, patient,

peaceful, and might be companionable if if I learned

to swim with it. Now the dugong of Phuket have died or vanished.

 

A symbol of the process by which species are banished

From the universe is The Trump, huge, stupid and brutal

Active in many and expanding into more areas of futile

Hegemony with no purpose other than its pleasure

In being obeyed. Its human population is an erasure

Of life which it wants to extend without limit. We must

oppose it in the power of the democracy of living things,

the networks of atoms, the cognition of cells, the strings

of DNA, the leaps of evolution, the resource of bacteria

the invention of insects, the agility of fish, the media

 of fungi, the geography of birds, the embrace of animals,

and the languages of human beings auditory or visual

like the painted hands from the Sulawesi cave in today’s

newspaper 70,000 years old from Indonesia that say

We are here too, we can do it together, yes all together

For the good earth against The Trump. It is death or

Life, so we should declare against the American Anus

The truth that nothing and no-one is superfluous

To our vision of the good expressed in policies local

And international that are just, allowing what is fragile

To flourish in the face of all that is merely gigantic

And what is beautiful to grow in place of all that is slick

And powerful. If we only speak this, it will become our

Funeral oration, we must do it, although our bones are

Weary, for terminal things may happen now if the earth

is left to careless fools. But if we can succeed in this, then

The Trump’s remains will be food for our sewage system

While the Dugong, with enough seagrass for quality

Eating, will be an honoured citizen of our polity.

 

How did they get so brave, the citizens of Minneapolis

In the face of all too realistic threats of death from ICE?

After Renee Good and Alex Pretti were murdered, still

Hundreds were on the streets, opposing the violent will

Of their government with demands for humanity and justice,

Their ballsy humour giving their peacefulness some fizz.

Would I choose to join them in the face of state thuggery?

If you get in the way of rapists, you’re open to buggery,

that’s bad, but you can make rational predictions, whereas

The randomness of these killings makes them too various

For avoidance. Renee was getting her car out of the road

When they shot her in the face. I would wear nothing to goad

Them if I protested, my banner would say, “please go

Away, if you don’t mind,” or “Peace in our time, if that’s O

K with you.” I would smile inoffensively and be ready to strip

naked to prove I had no weapon. My trembling lip

would acknowledge, “Guns make me nervous.” Gangs

who kill without reason will not be soft-soaped. No chance

of mercy or even rational evil from Trump’s soldiers.

So these protesters in Minneapolis are a good deal bolder

than me, as they stand with those who have no choice,

The immigrants, who knew the USA as freedom’s voice.

 

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