About this blog

My only daughter's name is Clea. Clea was six years and nine months old and she was enjoying a family holiday in Samoa when the ocean surged as a wall, ten metres high, and drowned her. Many other people died that morning of 29 September 2009.
The other four members of her family survived the tsunami.
Life has never been the same since. It will never be the same. This blog features memories, reflections, poetry, etc...
Just let me stay with her under this moon,
hold her in my arms, spin her in the air,
with my dear daughter in some timeless swoon.

Friday 3 January 2014

Your Birthday Present: A sonnet


What present would I have got you today?
A new bicycle? A gadget? How cool…
Something I’m certain you’d have loved to play
with? Perhaps something to show off at school?

We would have got you a chocolate cake,
or would have gone out to dinner – Thai, Chinese…
or a very special dish Mum could make.
You were not too tough a diner to please.

Would have loved the mangoes so juicy and ripe,
Or a cooling mid-afternoon iceblock:
raspberry, orange, or lemon and lime.
Another birthday, one more year to clock.

Yet all I can give you today: my tears.
This grief beyond words, not having you here.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Do you have something to say? I would like to hear from you.