Thanks Anne

Annelie Marie [Anne] Frank

12.06.1929-early march 1945-below with parents and with her sister Margot.

http://www.annefrank.org/content.asp?pid=l&1id=2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne Frank

http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/anne-frank-the-chestnut-tree-and-hope/

Anne was a Jewish girl, born in Frankfurt Germany she is of course famous for writing her diary which was given to her as a 13th birthday present. She tells of her life and experiences and above all her feelings both prior to and during the German occupation of Amsterdam to where the family had moved in 1933 to seek refuge from the growing Nazi persecution. The family went into hiding in July 1942. After 2 years of hiding in hidden rooms at her father’s [Otto Frank] office building they were betrayed and sent to concentration camps. Seven months after her arrest Anne died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen just days after her sister [Margot] also died.

I read Anne’s diary as a 12 year old schoolgirl and it changed completely the way I think and feel about people, which is why I have called this article simply “Thanks Anne.” I learned from Anne Frank that all over the world people are the same, no matter about race or colour or culture, people have the same hopes, the same dreams and aspirations, yes the same weaknesses and failings to be sure, but they also hurt the same and people can be crushed in the same way, people have the same dignity. Above all people have rights that are inherent in just being human, and it is just the curtailment of those rights perhaps that hurt most of all.

The indomitable spirit of Anne Frank rises up as the voice of the blackbird rises up each morning and evening, she had the precious gift of communicating, her thoughts and perhaps more importantly her feelings and in so doing she has the power to change and to form the way in which people regard and treat their fellow human beings. Once again Anne thanks.

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ANNE’S DIARY ENTRY FOR FEBRUARY 23 1944 followed by a poem I wrote called “MY CHESTNUT TREE (tomorrow I am free)”

…..from my favourite spot on the floor I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree upon whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind….as long as this exists I thought, and I may live to see it, this sunshine, the cloudless sky, while this lasts I cannot be unhappy……

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MY CHESTNUT TREE (tomorrow I am free)

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This my chosen spot

I may lay me down

gaze can only upward be

filled afresh with hope

that grew upon my chestnut tree

tomorrow I am free.

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No clouds in my sky

nor shadow troub’ling me

gracefully glides the sea gull

silvering droplets

sparkling on my chestnut tree

tomorrow I am free.

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As long as this is so

and if my eyes may see

my heart cannot then be sad

for me the sun shines

through my glistening chestnut tree

tomorrow I am free. 

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Damson jam

Netley Shore

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Moonlight shadow, moonlight shadow

I don’t want to be mantled with you

cold and unfriendly as you are

and chilled with the midnight dew

I want to have a sunbeam

clothed upon my shoulder,

little sis will hide her face

unless loving arms enfold her.

Sitting on a towel

down on Netley shore

eating bread and damson jam

harking the old men snore

sifting through the shingle

in the afternoon sun

a stone that’s got a hole in it,

little sis says, is a lucky one.

No-one says the sea is boring,

not the sailor, how would he?

who has spent his whole life

traversing ol’ Briny.

Freshing white, the breakers foam,

crested billow curl,

waves, wave upon wave

beneath sky of blue or pearl.

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Netley shore is an extract from Damson jam.

http://gentledove2.wordpress.com/damson-jam