Poetry can damage your health - if you are not ready to read it well and enjoy it - this is my contribution this morning - as I think and dedicate it to ALL of all our beautiful children

In lieu of my 'Agincourt' verse (what nonsense that might have been, and you ASK, for an explanation; let us leave it there, 'Agincourt', in any event , will lay moribund -

Amen to that

now this....

What pray thee, may I bequeth to you oh daughter fair
Simply crispy crackly white Fenland sparkly snow, oh no!
Twas snow which greeted you gleefully this morning as at nine years
Trot ye off in black snow boots on your way to school
With joy and a stomach full of my warm breakfast
I watched you round the bend sprightly stepped you

I am always vigilant watching and guarding and protecting for now
But as you grow they will not trouble you
These watchful guardian’s eyes
Mary , daughter, as you spring, jumping, hopping andf floating onto the next bridge over the stream that is the waving unpredictable
path of life under these English skies

Unlike I , thy path will not be my path or my wish for a rubicon like viaduct for you
Your own sculpted thought out and taught way forward it will be
Your's alone
We will see to that
If they let us be those who would dictate from school or from wherever come they
Nay

So what shall I promise you that remains my own gift, is it just be a semblance of fatherhood guidance
Or is there such a trunk to the rim filled with gold and precious jewels a plenty
Oh I can see you wish to know it!
I can tell you, for I have nought, little, yes plenty for now and for our daily lives fear not
, The pot, oh this is enough for now, what we have and hold
So fill thy pocket’s will jewels
And stars and all that gleams and shine and glistens brills in the snow soft reflected light’s
rays this winter morn
Though we may need you will fulfil that need with your own hard efforts
In your working playing doing dreaming adulthood

My Father leaveth me in his Boston graveyard cold and wet, a black tomb stone and has lasting guidance
He taught me from his own efforts that I would succeed if I tried hard enough,
As he and his Father had done before and protected us from War, to live as we do in Englands green
and unpredictable land For ‘tis here our sky, under which we stand or fall
We go forward as did the archers the longbowmen of olde England
You will read of Agincourt and it will show you who we are who your forefathers were and who you will be
Yet shall thee be the stripling who ties the twining twisted bow chord fair, or if you fail 'tis I who shall do it for you; and tight; right true; and who pulls the arrows from the quiver
Tis thee shall see where to shoot to kill and put him to death quickly and right painlessly so he may no longer
speak more evil against us that man, and you shall tell your husband,
the brave Nottingham bowman ,
where the target lays and urge him to shoot quickly now and let the arrow fly true and well

My children, or even if thine are deemed not to be mine,
, and yet you surely are, your sisters too
; which slings and arrows of life's uncertainty and good fortune or misfortune have travelled and struck sharp home

yet - they are now blunted and of no use to the child , let alone those brave Fenland bowmens

And for this am contented I

from....Peter

Your Dad January 2013