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At Home in Their Own Skin

Before the world can tell them
what they ought to be,
let our children find a welcome
in the way we choose to see.

Let them wear their laughter loudly,
let them cry without disguise,
never searching for permission
to be lovely in our eyes.

For a careless word at breakfast
can outlive the morning rain,
and the names we give their bodies
may become their private pain.

Let us notice when they falter,
when they tug upon a sleeve,
when they ask, “Do I look funny?”
and need love they can believe.

Let us listen past the question,
put the busy day aside,
make a place beside the washing
where no part of them must hide.

And when our own days break us,
when our patience comes apart,
let us find the words, “I’m sorry,”
without asking for their heart

to carry all our burdens,
or explain our hurt away.
They deserve to see us learning
how to love them every day.

They will know we are not perfect.
They will hear it when we shout.
Let them also hear us knocking,
coming back to work things out.

May they see the care in action:
how we listen, how we stay,
how we change the things that hurt them,
even when change takes all day.

Then perhaps, when they are older,
with uncertain hearts of their own,
they will face a bathroom mirror
and feel less afraid, less alone.

They will see a face worth knowing,
touch the skin that holds them in,
and remember being cherished
before they knew where to begin.

JH

 
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Posted by on October 28, 2026 in Uncategorized

 

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Greed

Some people want the whole damn pie,
Then steal your fork and ask you why.
They’ve filled their pockets, filled their plates,
And bought the locks upon our gates.


They con you with a charming grin,
Then tell you that you’ve got to fit in.
They twist the truth, they move the goal,
Then sell you back your own poor soul.


They want control of what you say,
What you believe, and how you pray.
They’d bottle freedom, brand the air,
Then charge you extra for a share.


They’ll preach of kindness, peace and light,
Then rob you blind before the night.
They’ll shake your hand, then pick your pocket,
And call it business, put it in the budget.


Oh, what a clever bunch we’ve grown,
With hearts of ice and egos overblown.
They count their money, worship gold,
And wonder why the world’s grown cold.


They build their empires on our backs,
Then blame the poor for what they lack.
They hoard the land, the food, the sea,
Then sell us dreams of being free.


Well, here’s a thought, you greedy lot,
The planet isn’t yours to squat
Upon like some entitled king,
Who thinks the world owes him everything.


You cannot eat your piles of cash,
Or hug your gold when forests crash.
You cannot buy a world reborn,
When every field lies stripped and worn.


We don’t need more who cheat and rule,
Or polished sharks who play the fool.
We don’t need bullies dressed in ties,
Or con artists selling paradise.


We need more people who give a damn,
Who help their neighbour, share the jam.
Who speak the truth, who stand up tall,
Who know there’s room enough for all.


Less taking, more giving, less ego, more grace,
Less winning at someone else’s expense in this race.
Less “Look what I’ve got!” and more “What can I do?”
Less “Me against them,” and more “Me and you.”


For no one gets out with a mansion in tow,
No golden parachute wherever we go.
We’re all just visitors, passing on through,
So perhaps we should leave something decent to do.


Let’s plant a few trees, let compassion take root,
Stop worshipping money as life’s sacred fruit.
Let’s teach our children that kindness is clever,
And being a decent human matters forever.


Because the world’s not short of wealth or power,
It’s short of a conscience in the darkest hour.
And if we want a planet worth passing along,
We need fewer people convinced they can’t be wrong.


So here’s to the kind ones, the brave and the true,
The ones who make space for somebody new.
The ones who choose love when hatred seems cheaper,
Who lift others up instead of climbing steeper.


The future won’t shine because someone got richer,
Or because some con artist became a bit slicker.
It starts when we choose to be better, together,
And stop treating our planet like disposable weather.


So, greedy little kings, here’s a thought for your throne,
You might own a fortune, but you don’t own this home.
This Earth belongs to no tyrant, no clan, no elite,
It’s the home of us all, with one shared heartbeat.


And if we want tomorrow to be greener and fairer,
Let’s be kinder, less selfish, more honest, more caring.
Because we don’t need a world full of people who take.
We need better people for the world’s own sake.
JH

 
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Posted by on October 17, 2026 in poetry, Ranting

 

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Already September???

Already September

Excuse me, who pressed fast forward?

January just waved hello, now September’s standing here holding a pumpkin spice latte like it owns the place.

My to do list is still buffering, my New Year’s goals are somewhere under a pile of “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

At this rate, Christmas will text, “Outside.” and I’ll still be looking for April.

JH

 
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Posted by on September 1, 2026 in poetry

 

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When summer lets us go

Summer does not leave all at once.
It loosens its hand
one cooler morning,
one empty chair outside the café,
the sudden need for sleeves.

We begin looking for autumn
in shop windows and treetops,
in the first leaf turning
like a small, rust-coloured promise.

Soon, the light will soften.
The evenings will draw us home.

And we will let ourselves be found
by quieter things.

JH

 
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Posted by on August 24, 2026 in Uncategorized

 

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When the Trees Start Speaking

The first thing to disappear is not the forest.

It is the birdsong.

Then the shade.
Then the scent of rain caught in pine needles.
Then the quiet certainty that this place would still be here tomorrow.

Wildfire is not always the enemy.
Some forests have learned its language over thousands of years.
They open their cones after heat.
They begin again.

But these fires are different.

They arrive hotter.
They run faster.
They leap rivers, climb mountains, swallow towns, chase families down roads lined with smoke and memory.

They leave behind more than black earth.

They leave empty nests.
Silent rivers.
Animals searching for homes that no longer exist.
People holding house keys that open nothing.

Somewhere, a firefighter walks into a wall of heat for a stranger.
Somewhere, a child asks why the sky has turned orange.
Somewhere, an old tree that stood through centuries finally falls.

The flames do not ask who we voted for.
They do not stop at borders.
They do not recognise wealth, language, or flags.

They simply burn.

Perhaps caring for forests begins long before the first spark.

It begins when we refuse to look away.
When we protect old woodland instead of treating it as empty land.
When we clear what can be cleared.
When we plant what can be planted.
When we understand that every tree is quietly working a lifetime for creatures it will never meet.

Maybe hope looks less like a grand speech,
and more like muddy boots,
charred hands planting tiny saplings,
volunteers carrying exhausted wildlife,
neighbours opening doors to strangers,
children learning that the Earth is borrowed, never owned.

One tree cannot stop a wildfire.

One person cannot heal a planet.

But forests were never built by one tree,
and tomorrow has always belonged to those who plant something they may never live to sit beneath.

The smoke will lift.

The ash will settle.

The first green shoot will push through blackened soil with astonishing courage.

And when it does,
may we remember that the world has been asking us, all along,
not simply to admire nature,

but to care for it before it has to scream.

JH

 
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Posted by on August 3, 2026 in Uncategorized

 

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Summer Fold

The sun stretches its arms across the sky
not reaching but gathering
pulling everything into a slow exhale

we walk through heat-hazed mornings
shoes forgotten on grass still damp
with dew we didn’t notice falling

there is something sublime about this weightless warmth
settling on shoulders like a worn blanket
soft enough to forget what winter felt like

bees blur in golden air
children draw circles in concrete dust
their chalk lines blooming before sunset

and night comes down differently here
no sharp edges left standing
just amber dusk wrapping round wrists
round ankles
around the quiet pulse of home

summer folds us all gently
tucks our restless thoughts beneath skin
teaches us how to breathe without counting seconds

even grief slows down
sitting on porches swaying in rhythm
waiting out another day folded warm inside itself

JH

 
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Posted by on July 1, 2026 in Uncategorized

 

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A Strange Idea

There is a strange idea

that to rise,
someone else must fall.

That kindness is weakness.
That compassion costs too much.
That difference is something
to fear.

But look closer.

The world has never been changed
by those who built higher walls.

It changes
every time someone says,
“Come in.”

Do more.

Not for applause,
not for likes,
not because your name will be remembered.

Do more because somewhere
a tired soul is carrying
far more than you can see.

Be kinder.

Everyone is fighting battles
behind careful smiles
and ordinary conversations.

Respect everyone.

The cleaner.
The stranger.
The refugee.
The neighbour.
The person who disagrees with you.
The person who looks nothing like you.

Human dignity
should never be selective.

We are all temporary travellers,
brief sparks beneath the same sky.

So leave gentleness in your wake.

Hold doors.
Share laughter.
Speak softly.
Stand firmly against cruelty.

And when history asks
what we did with our little piece of time,

let the answer be:

We made it kinder.

JH

 
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Posted by on June 25, 2026 in Uncategorized

 

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Threads of Her Name

They told us
history was stone.

Cold.
Fixed.
Carved by careful hands.

But history was never stone.

It was breath held behind closed teeth.
Ink smudged by tired fingers.
A name hidden in the margin
because the page belonged to someone else.

It was women
writing themselves sideways into the record.

A spiral in the corner of a notebook.
A recipe that was really a warning.
A hymn carrying directions to safety.
A thread stitched red through grey cloth.
A footnote refusing to disappear.

They called us emotional
when we remembered too much.

Hysterical
when we noticed the pattern.

Difficult
when we refused to forget ourselves.

Still, we kept recording.

On scraps of paper.
On skin.
On kitchen walls.
In archives that smelled of dust and rain.
In the trembling space between speaking
and being silenced.

Because memory is not passive.

It is resistance.

And every woman who said
No, that is not what happened,
left a door cracked open for the next one.

The next reader.
The next witness.
The next voice brave enough to write her own name
before someone else erased it.

Listen carefully.

You can still hear them.

In libraries.
In classrooms.
In code.
In songs.
In the hush before a woman finally decides
she will not make herself smaller anymore.

The archive does not sleep.

It waits.

And somewhere, even now,
another hand is drawing the spiral
in the margin.

Jh

From a book I’m writing and will be out in the Autumn.

 
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Posted by on May 28, 2026 in Uncategorized

 

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Taking it back….

The archives remember kings
because kings built the archives

our names survived in fragments
stitched into the hems of uniforms
pressed into recipe books
buried inside letters no historian thought to unfold carefully

they called us muses
wives
witches
madwomen
assistants

anything but architects

for centuries they edited us down
cut us from photographs
quoted our work without saying our names
turned our bodies into evidence
our anger into diagnosis
our exhaustion into character flaws

they built entire institutions
out of the belief
that we would stay grateful for the corners

but something is changing now

you can feel it in the classrooms
in the courtrooms
in group chats that turn into movements before dawn
in daughters who no longer apologise before speaking
in women comparing notes
and suddenly realising the pain was never personal

we are recovering each other
like lost cities beneath water

there is fury in it
but also tenderness

the kind born when someone says
I thought I was alone in this

and another voice answers
you were never alone
they just worked very hard to keep us separate

now the old language is cracking

the words that kept us small
hysterical
difficult
too emotional
too ambitious
too loud

they no longer fit properly

we are outgrowing them

there are women alive right now
learning to take up space without apology
without shrinking their brilliance
without softening their edges into something more acceptable

women rebuilding themselves from the historical record outward

women who understand that survival was never the final goal

we did not endure centuries merely to remain decorative

we are returning to ourselves

not quietly
not perfectly
not all at once

but together

and that changes everything

JH

 
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Posted by on May 18, 2026 in Uncategorized

 

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Not right or left

They do not arrive with books open,
or sleeves rolled for the hard mathematics of truth.
They arrive with one word,
thin as a matchstick,
sharp as something thrown from the back of a classroom.

“Lefty.”

And suddenly the debate is over.

No need to answer the question about hunger,
or why the rich man’s dog eats cleaner meat
than the child beside the station.
No need to explain the smoke climbing from wars
signed by smiling hands in tailored suits.
No need to untangle history,
that long electrical wire
still sparking under our feet.

Just say “lefty”
and the room exhales with relief.

Because names are easier than thought.
Labels fit neatly into pockets.
Arguments do not.

The hater loves shortcuts.
Loves exits marked with insults.
Loves the trapdoor beneath complexity.

Call someone “lefty,”
“dreamer,”
“woke,”
anything that folds a human being
into a cartoon shape.

Then you never have to meet their eyes.

You never have to admit
that compassion is inconvenient,
that empathy rearranges furniture in the mind,
that fairness asks difficult questions
and waits for difficult answers.

Hatred fears debate
the way moths fear daylight.

It survives in slogans,
in chants shouted over microphones,
in comment sections foaming like poisoned rivers.
It survives where nobody listens.

Because real debate
requires a dangerous thing,
the possibility of being changed.

And those who worship certainty
would rather burn libraries
than move one inch from themselves.

So they throw words like stones.

“Lefty.”

A tiny word attempting to bury
entire landscapes of thought.

But language remembers.

The teachers remember.
The workers remember.
The poets remember.
Every quiet soul who ever asked,
“Could this world be kinder than this?”

They remember.

And somewhere tonight,
beneath fluorescent lights humming like tired bees,
a student raises a trembling hand
to ask a forbidden question.

Not left.
Not right.
Just human.

And that question
is heavier than every insult
thrown to silence it.

JH

 
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Posted by on May 11, 2026 in Uncategorized

 

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