Kindness First and Foremost

Something has really got under my skin particularly in the last year and that is how ready people are to cast the first stone. In modern lingo that might be passing judgement without full understanding, gossiping without consideration of the impact of our actions, naming and shaming on social media when we seldom know the full facts or even if the source was reliable in the first place, criticising others particularly in terms of covid regs without seeing the bigger picture, criticising generally because it doesn’t align with our perspective which we assume is the only ‘right’ one etc.

But how often do we stop and think about the deeper affect of our own actions when we do this? How often do we consider the impact on the victim of our belittling and judgement. How often do we actually reflect on our own consciousness and consider that we are all flawed in some way?

I just wonder because in a world where we also share and retweet memes about kindness because those memes inspire us to be better, how often do we challenge ourselves first to step up to the mark? Kindness isn’t limited to acts for those we love but also those we don’t!

Kindness

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A Prayer

Moaning, The Weather, Tea and Maybe Gin!

There’s an English addiction
That really is rife
To moan about everything
They encounter in life
They complain about this
They complain about that
They protest and they grumble
And they go tit for tat
Be it about their work or their children
Their house or their car
They take moaning to new levels
But the complaint that’s by far
The most idiosyncratic of all
Just has to be
When they moan about the weather
Be it wet or sunny
For in winter they witter
About the cold and the rain
Then in summer the sun
Gives them cause to complain
So like ‘em or love ‘em
To be English for sure
Is to be in a state of discontentment
Where only tea is the cure!
For tea is quite magic
As it makes all things right
When the English have done battle
And there’s no gin in sight!

Mobile Phone Generation

People Watching

Beware A Bear

Cuts Nose to Spite Face

Don’t Worry

Blueprint in a bulb

When I Am Old

I’m not going to be that old lady
With nothing but gossip to while away hours
Planted in front of the TV soaps
Who plays bingo or drinks sherry
Wearing strings of pearls
With rouged cheekbones and painted nails

Instead my days will draw to a close
Like a vibrant painting
Where splashes of life
And streaks of colour
Will splatter in abstract abandon
As the ink dares to cross the lines

The twilight years where being me
Casts away the cloak of expectation
And dances in the meadow of inspiration
Shouting poetic expression across the plains
And where fresh air rouges my face
Whilst bubbling springs wash over my bare feet

And I will run through forests of books
The inscriptions of the wise
In a quest for eternal knowledge
Jumping into the deepest oceans
To swim against the tide
To bathe in enlightened waters

For the spirit of ageing
Will bloom like the autumn cherry
Fighting the tides of winter
In one final exclamation
Of everything that is life
And of everything that makes life great!