Easy

You see the lovers, sitting,

Holding hands outside the café,

Perfect you would think to yourself,

Just perfect,

Yet for a fleeting moment there is a look in one of the couple's eyes

Which screams, that the end has finally arrived.

The woman walks the long street, watching and smiling at

The babies in their prams, and the mothers and fathers,

all smile back wondering what the woman is wanting.

What the woman wants - is to know, that had her child lived

What she would have been doing today. Who she would have been loving.

The vicar sits by the window of the church, looking out on to the world

That he has tried to save for nearly forty years,

He slips down another whisky, and another but nothing

Can warm his soul the way that God did in the past,

That was, until he stopped believing.

The little boy stands outside the house where his father has moved,

This is the place where that woman lives, the one who destroyed the family

- According to his mother.

And all around the houses, and streets, and villages, and towns, and cities,

They are all singing the same hymn:

“No one gets it easy any more”.

bobby stevenson 2019

Friends

Don’t think you are never seen, dear friend,

You leave a trace wherever you wander -

A smile, a laugh, a hope.

Don’t think you are never heard, my pal

There is always someone listening -

A song, a word, a joke.

Don’t think you are ever forgotten, old friend,

For when we passed each other

In that briefest of time,

You left a piece of you with me

That I'll carry wherever I go.

bobby stevenson 2019

Twenty Twenty Vision

Next year some people will leave your life
And new ones will enter
Next year some dreams will vanish
And others, not thought of, will come out of the sun
Next year you’ll make mistakes
And you’ll survive them all
Next year you’ll win some things, and you'll lose some things
Next year some friends will fail to understand
And some will grow to love you
Next year you’ll learn a little more about yourself
Some of it you’ll like and some of it you won’t
Next year perhaps you'll cry alone
But you'll also laugh at things you won't explain to others
Next year some of your actions will be misunderstood
But you'll discover that others understand in amazing ways
Next year you'll misjudge hearts and situations
And yet find more caring than you ever thought possible
Next year you’ll learn to love yourself just that little bit better
And that will be all you’ll need.

bobby stevenson 2019