GAS Featured Poet: Wendy Webb

Wendy Webb (she): Born in the Midlands, home and family life in Norfolk, keen gardener and photographer. Published in Indigo Dreams, Quantum Leap, Crystal, Envoi, Seventh Quarry, The Frogmore Papers, The Journal) and online (Littoral Magazine, Wildfire Words, Lothlorien, Atlantean, Radio: Poetry Place), Writing Magazine 1^st Prize (Pantoum). Wrote her father’s biography, and her own autobiography. Favourite poets: Dylan Thomas, Gerard Manley Hopkins, John Burnside, the Romantic Poets, Emily Dickinson, and the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. 

One Little Thing, Baby  

 

Baby, I love you - with only a photograph

Baby, I love you - wheeled through corridors

to see the back of a head

Baby, I love you - all bleeps and wires

expressed milk, air through tube, that first cuddle

Baby, I love you - the ambulance, the transfer

Baby, I love you - first tiny outfit

tiny nappy after that night ‘alone’

through the night, nurses backing up

Baby, I love you - ringlets of baby fat

on sturdy legs and kiss curls and smile

Baby, I love you - face covered in chocolate goo

ear-piercing screeches, fear of water, cold

Baby, I love you - in Nursery, with help

with tests, professionals, records, milestones

Baby, I love you - loud and brash

in sparkly cape, the Inn Keeper (Nativity)

Doctor, Doctor, Doctor (?Who)

Baby, I love you - loud and gauche

dropping sounds, last in the race

Baby, I love you - reading, reading

Horribles (History/Maths/Geography…)

Baby, I love you - blowing out candles

little parties, friendships, last-minute homework

last-minute routines, last-minute lifestyle

Baby, I love you - studying, struggling

mis-recording, shining through teachers’ reports

parents’ evenings, exams

Baby, I love you - Dad organising Uni visits

applications; deadlines, disorganisation

Baby, I love you - packing, unpacking, Skyping

keeping you afloat or grounded.  Calm, or

refocusing 

Baby, I love you - seeming to fly

discovering personality, clubs; your tribe

Baby, I love you - through thick and thin

not much; between.

Could you, Baby, now you’re mature

show Mum you love her - give her a card?