“If I had hated,” you said, “I would have become an assassin.

But no, my revenge is love.” Goodness does not just endure, its passion

Is to fight evil, with humane weapons. You did this Marguerite,

In Burundi in the face of genocide where a squad of elite

Killers forced you to witness them killing seventy humans

Including a man you loved, so that, they declared, they might ruin

Your hope, but failed because in that place you made Maison

Shalom where ethnic designations were banned and the pleasant

Skills of children, women, and men nourished until a small

Refuge grew to include a hospital, restaurant, gym and theatre, all

Stolen by your own government when you had to flee its

Malevolence in 2015, since when you have seen the

Twa, the indigenous pygmy people of the African Lakes,

As the symbolic focus of your work for justice. Fake

Saints exist but millions of poor people declare you

Authentic.Amen. But to understand the care you

Have given, I had to read the story of the Rwandan

Genocide: the political designers of hate; the brutal

Propaganda; the interahamwe militia, the radio

Mix of music and murder. Just so. But your neighbour

Coming for you with a machete, your pastor watching

You raped five times a day, their way of snatching

Babies from your arms to slice them open, playing

Football with your husband’s head, happily flaying

The skin from captive soldiers -A ruthlessness only

Of homo sapiens, not seen elsewhere on the globe

Maybe not in the universe, justifying the terrible Christians

Who wrote of total corruption and the stink of Satan. Missions

Of love look vain in face of this evil, the bloodstains refuse

To wash out. Amor non vincit omnia. The sticky stuff chooses

To stay on Jesus’ hands and feet and side. Neither his love

Nor yours Marguerite redeems what was done here nor those

Who did it. Only love can foster life, it’s true, you are our teacher,

But does any sensible person want to foster the life of this creature?

 

 

 

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 he was 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.