I glimpsed a child

 

 

                                                                      Iraqi children

Dear Reader,

 

The hot weather this week was too much for me.  I shut all the curtains and blinds and sat in the sitting room in the virtual dark, with a fan on. I don't think the great heat suits the make up of some English people. For myself I never sit in the sun but if its rays do descend on me, I simply get red blotches and a headache.  So I was very glad when the thunderstorms came and with them the rain and it got cooler.  I can imagine what people waiting for the monsoons feel and why they are so delighted when the rains finally come.

                                                                                      *

I wrote today's poem when I read about the appalling time the Iraqi refugee children were having, with little food and often without parents, who had died or disappeared. I often thought about them and swear I saw one in my kitchen, she seemed so real to me.

                                                                                       *

From Dorothy Wordsworth's journal, August 22nd 1800 in Westmorland 

 'Very cold.  Baking in the morning, gathered pea seeds and took up - lighted a fire upstairs....Wind very high shaking the corn.' 

                                                                                        *

I glimpsed a child 

on the kitchen chair

feet dangling 

legs swinging

 

large brown eyes stared

from a dusty pale face

she didn't smile or speak

 

about seven years old I thought

Syrian perhaps or Iraqi

her clothes once pink and green

now mud stained and torn

 

her silver bracelets sparkling

in the sunlight

 

I made her Moroccan mint tea

offered her cake

kissed her cold cheek

dried her tears

 

I fetched more sugar

but on return I saw

the chair was empty

the child gone

dissolved in the morning air

 

                                                                              *

 

With very best wishes, Patricia