Saturday 27 February 2016

I glimpsed a child



Dear Reader,
                                                                                    Violets

D.H. Lawrence, writing in his journal from Cornwall in 1916, mentions the wonderful sight of the primroses and violets he saw on a walk.  This reminded me that I haven't seen any violets, these beautiful small wild flowers, for years.   There are many myths about violets: the Ancient Greeks considered them a symbol of fertility and used them to make love potions, and throughout medieval Europe they were considered a protection against evil spirits.  The violet was also the emblem of the French Bonapartists.  Josephine wore violets at her marriage to Napoleon, and he apparently gave her a bouquet of violets on each wedding anniversary.  It is also said that he wore a locket of violets around his neck for he rest of his life, and Shakespeare called them "forward", as they were harbingers of spring.

Have I then, I wonder, been walking in the wrong places to see them, or do they really no longer exist?    Are the surprising and pleasurable moments of glimpsing groups of violets peeping out from mossy banks no longer possible for us today?  It seems so.



                                                                               *
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



                                                                           *

Very best wishes, Patricia

Sunday 21 February 2016

Suit, Waistcoat, Tie

                                                                                        A Tudor Gentleman

Dear Reader,

Earlier this week I went to a talk on "Elizabethan England" which was mostly about what the people then wore, what they ate, and how they lived - stories of the aristocracy, gentry and peasantry alike. These are some of the things that I found to be interesting and hope you do too, if you don't know them already!  Apparently only four out of every ten babies born survived, and you were very lucky to be alive after the age of 45.  Your clothing was designed to keep out the extreme cold in your house, so it had to be very substantial.   For men, in the trunk hose you can see in the picture above, wool was stuffed so that when you sat down your nether regions kept warm on stone seats or chairs.  You always wore a hat of some sort to stop the lice and bugs from your hair falling into your food, and everywhere and everyone smelt horrific.  Nobody had their teeth pulled out unless it was too painful to carry on, so mouths were full of putrefying stumps. These are just a few things I can remember,  but it makes me think how lucky we are to live in the 21st century in a beautiful and civilized land.  Perhaps Emma Thompson should think more carefully when she describes her dislike of this "emerald isle".


                                                                              *

Suit, Waistcoat, Tie


Why wear his best suit, waistcoat, tie
at a talk on Nuclear Waste?
The village hall crumbles,
lit by dusty neon lights,
tea is served from cracked cups
and dull biscuits offered.

The rest wear jumble-sale clothes,
too dispirited to care,
their appearance long abandoned.

But is there someone there
who has stirred his heart,
made him feel alive again?
The reason for his best suit,
his waistcoat and his tie,
his winning smile, his bright eye?


I like to think so,
hope so.

                                                                               *

Very best wishes, Patricia

Saturday 13 February 2016

Porridge


Dear Reader
                                                                    Naples

St. Valentine's Day and I expect, and sincerely hope, that lots of roses, satin hearts, and messages of love and devotion are today winging their way throughout the length and breadth of Britain, if not the world itself.  However I don't suppose many roses or letters of love will be presented at the house of an Italian woman I read about last week.  This woman could face up to six years in jail because her husband accused her of not looking after him properly, nor doing enough cooking or cleaning in the home.  Their house was slovenly, he said, and left in a terrible mess.   After reading Elena Ferrante's marvellous books about down-town Naples and the way families there behaved in the 1950s and 60s, and perhaps still do, Italian husbands did not have a high score for romanticism in any quarter.  So perhaps this woman had had enough and decided to down tools, copied her husband, and read the newspaper.   If this strange case ever does actually come to court, I do hope she is acquitted and can find happiness somewhere, and even perhaps love.


                                                                            *

Porridge


The kitchen maid
plunges thin white arms
into the heavy cast-iron pot,
scours the glutinous porridge
from its insides.
She imagines her mistress
out in her carriage
on pleasure calls,
wearing lilac silk,
freshwater pearls around her neck,
her hands, idle white, in her lap.
She weeps.


The housewife scours the saucepan,
eases the porridge from its sides,
brushes the sticky mess into the sink.
She imagines her husband
taking the train, office-bound,
making important telephone calls,
lunching with partners Lucy and George
in that Italian bistro, discussing deals,
drinking white wine, laughing, living.
She weeps.

                                                                            *

Very best wishes,  Patricia

Sunday 7 February 2016

The Brown Bear


Dear Reader,
                                                                        A Unicorn

I have been reading a book about a man who went on an expedition to the Himalayas hoping to see a Snow Leopard, or, even less likely, a Yeti.  But I discovered that the Yeti or Abominable Snowman doesn't exist if truth be known.  No-one has ever really seen one in the Himalaya region of Nepal and Tibet or anywhere else for that matter.  So the Yeti is a legend due to lack of conclusive evidence of its existence, although people have seen large apes and large bears for which it has been mistaken. 
Then there is the unicorn.  Another legendary creature to confuse me.  It is said that when Noah gathered two of every kind of animal, he neglected to gather the unicorns, which is why they don't exist today and, of course, why nobody has seen one.

I find legends very mystifying, particularly the story of King Arthur.  I have never quite worked out whether he was a real flesh-and-blood king or simply an imaginative good read. I have seen the Knights' Round Table at Tintagel but nevertheless...

I myself do, in fact, talk to my teddy bear, Aristotle, and although I know somewhere in my head that he can't hear me or understand what I am saying, a part of me is strangely under the illusion that he can.  Is this perhaps how legends start?

                                                                             *


The Brown Bear

lies on the floor,
the rocking chair still,
the house mute,
the children gone.

Three months of silence,
as boarding school houses my children,
the woman thinks.
How will I endure the emptiness,
the ache of missing them,
not being of comfort?

She sees the bear's blue jersey
is torn, has large holes in it,
like the large holes in her heart.
She picks up the bear,
holds him tight,
pours herself a drink.


                                                                         *

Very best wishes, Patricia