The Mind Cupboard

Dear Reader,

     As someone who has had mental problems over my life, in particular, problems with anxiety  I have put my poem 'The Mind cupboard' on the blog today.  I think in this very strange time of Corona virus many of us will be feeling slightly unstable.

Perhaps we don't have a garden and there are no suitable places to walk, our homes are small and we are having to share them with a large family.  This is not the case for me, but I can visualize this scene.  It is not a good one.  But, from what I have read in the newspapers, things will get better and normality will be resumed by the end of the summer if not before.  Cheer up.

Next week the weather is going to be sunny, the birds are having a lovely time so open the windows and listen to their joyful songs. And here is a tip I feel I can give you if you have Netflix.  Watch 'Anne with an E' before you go to bed and you will probably sleep well.

* 

April 12th, Dorothy Wordsworth writing in Somerset, 1798

'Walked in the morning in the wood.  In the evening up the Coombe, fine walk.  The Spring advances

rapidly, multitudes of primroses, dog-violets, periwinkles, stitchwort.'

April 12th, Nathaniel Hawthorne writing in York, 1857

'(Easter Sunday)  This morning was bleak and most uncongenial; a chilly sunshine, a piercing wind, a prevalenc of watery cloud, - April weather, without the tenderness that ought to be half revealed in it.'

*

The Mind Cupboard

My mind cupboard overflows

with unwanted debris.

It needs a spring clean.

I will brush away the cobwebs

of cheerless thoughts.

Scrub out the stains of childhood.

I will replace the brass hooks

corroded with salt tears,

empty all the screams

hoarded through the years.

I will replace the accumulated ashes

from the worn shelf-paper

with virgin tissue.

I will chase and catch the wasps,

relieve them of their stings.

I will refill this cupboard

with love, and learnt, brighter things.

*

Very best wishes, Patricia