Family

Posted on 22 April, 2014 by PoetJanstie

(For Noah and Neve)

You may not choose your family,
but you’ll be loved by them,
because you are the flower’s bloom
and they your lasting stem.

If ever you have doubted it,
this love you feel inside,
not there by chance, but by design,
where your heart will reside

in everything and everywhere,
you’ll feel this poem’s rhyme
remind you that your family
will bear the test of time.

© 2014 John Anstie

About PoetJanstie

“Life is short and art long, the crisis fleeting, experience penniless and decision difficult” ~ Hippocrates. As a young man, John was sporting and fit. It was then as much his recreational therapy as a cappella harmony singing, music, walking in the hills and writing is now. Playing Rugby Union for over twenty years, encouraged in the early days by a school that was run on the same lines and ethos as that famous Scottish public school, Gordonstoun, where our own headmaster had been as a senior master. This gave shape and discipline to a sometimes precarious early life. His fitness was enhanced not only by playing rugby, but also by working part time jobs in farming, as a leather factory packer and security guard, but probably not helped, for a short time, selling ice cream! His professional working life was spent as a Metallurgical Engineer, Marketing Manager, Export Sales Manager, Implementation Manager and Managing Director of his own company. Thirty five years spent, apparently in a creative desert, raising a family, pursuing a career and helping to pay the bills, probably enriched his experience, because his renaissance, on retirement, realised a hidden creative talent as a writer of prose and poetry. He also enjoys music, with a piano and a fifty-two year old Yamaha FG140 acoustic guitar. He sings bass in three a cappella harmony groups: as a founding member of a mixed voice chamber choir, Fox Valley Voices and barbershop quartets. He is also a member of one of the top barbershop choruses in the UK, Hallmark of Harmony (stage name of the Sheffield Barbershop Harmony Club), who, for the eighth time in 41 years, became UK Champions in 2019. He is also a would be (once upon a time or 'has been') photographer with drawers full of his own history, and an occasional, but lapsed 'film' maker. In his other life, he doubles as a Husband, Father, Grandfather, Brother, Uncle, Cousin, Friend and Family man. What he writes is sometimes autobiographical, often political, sometimes dark and frequently pins his colours to the mast of climate change and how a few humans are trashing the Earth. In 2013, he published an anthology of the poetry (including his own) of an international group of poets, who met on Twitter in 2011. He produced, edited and steered the product of this work, "Petrichor Rising", to publication by Aquillrelle. His sort of strap-line reads: “ iWrite iSing iDance iChi iVolunteer ”
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8 Responses to Family

  1. Jamie Dedes says:
    10 October, 2014 at 8:06 am

    Ah, I think every one should print this out and post it on the front door as a reminder whenever they leave the house. Well done, John, and memorable.

    Liked by 1 person

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  2. Susie Clevenger (@wingsobutterfly) says:
    11 June, 2014 at 4:43 am

    What a beautiful poem about family. My family, meaning my parents and sisters, was a difficult place to be. The words, I love you, were never spoken. In spite of the harshness of it we always remained close.

    Liked by 1 person

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  3. Naomi Baltuck says:
    20 May, 2014 at 7:26 am

    Very sweet, John! Made me want to go hug my kids and husband.

    Liked by 1 person

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  4. Victoria C. Slotto says:
    16 May, 2014 at 10:37 pm

    Family–the challenge we love! Nice reminder, John.

    Liked by 1 person

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  5. Joseph Hesch says:
    24 April, 2014 at 12:53 pm

    There’s a sweetness and tightness of thought, like a bud ready to burst, within this piece, John. You read it in its compact and rhyming form and then, poof, it blooms in the soil of our own gardens. Lovely, my friend.

    Liked by 1 person

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