TO LINDSAY AND THE SPIRIT OF THE PALESTINIAN BOY by Tom Leonard

                                                   

                        TO LINDSAY AND THE SPIRIT OF THE PALESTINIAN BOY

                                                   by Tom Leonard


                                       I met her in the All Comers Writers Club,

                                      That Scott created fair space for,

                                       Before the dog chased us out of Jeremiah's Taproom.

                                       Then in Sofi's we prospered,

                                       All in all a motley crew

                                       That splintered as if in a bizarre novel

                                       Leaving only the steadfast well bonded.

                                       And now all those hipster lunches in the  Roseleaf,

                                       Trips around the Lothians and the Tweed,

                                       And festive times happily spent,

                                       Are good memories soon to be resumed.


                                       Freya and Hera entwined,

                                        She writes of

                                        Fairies who become children

                                        Children who become birds

                                        That between the Bass Rock and Tantallon fly

                                         Birds who become fairies

                                         And fight with the pixies

                                         That from Trimontium scamper.

                                         She composed Wake up my Son

                                         Mind searingly about the Palestinian boy,

                                         And wrote poems about the black victims of the rabid police,

                                         And about all souls who are slain in vain

                                         By the evil ripples that shuffle above.



                                         Lindsay likes Kath and they both like cats;

                                         She is the spirit of the short story in the Spiegeltent

                                         And its time so well spent.

                                         She lives with MS

                                         While I wither and dither

                                         From maladies man-made

                                         She lives in her daughters, acrobatic and wild

                                          And in her grandson, who is such a smart child.

                                        
                                          Retired lecturer from Heriot-Watt.

                                          She worked in Michigan when I haunted Wisconsin

                                         Applied psychologist and mathematician too

                                         She lives in Number One One One Cornhill Terrace

                                          A haven for the spirit people and the ravens in the trees

                                         She's taught me perceptions which I never knew.

                                          My wife and my Polish girl were the loves of my life,

                                         Not to forget the Mayflower Rose,

                                         But Lindsay stands tall

                                         As the soundest woman I have known

                                         As she stands on her pedestal and reclines on her throne.



                                       
                                               MCGINTY'S CAT