Sunday 5 November 2017

Small Moments of Warmth

Dear Reader,

                                                                                Pony and Trap


Peeping into other people's gardens this week I noticed that the one flower flourishing and still giving colour was the Michaelmas Daisy.  Michaelmas, the Feast of Michael and All angels, is celebrated on the 29th of September every year, and as it falls near the equinox, the day is associated with the beginning of autumn and the shortening days,  in England it is one of the quarter days. There is something old-fashioned and charming about Michaelmas daisies,  they are mostly blue and purple which look exceptionally good in the  low autumnal sun.  Michaelmas daisies banish autumn blues, they are vibrant, cheerful, and loved by butterflies.


Someone wrote to me last week asking for more stories of my eccentric Irish grandmother.  So here is a snippet.  She used to go shopping at Fortnum and Mason every morning, although what she needed or bought goodness knows since she was living at the Ritz Hotel at the time.  To go there she wore a long red velvet coat with a train trailing behind her, and on her head a black hat with a veil.  She also carried a walking stick which she pointed at people who were in her way, and stopped buses in their tracks when she wanted to cross the road. But however strange she was, she did live until she was 98.

                                                                           *

Small Moments of Warmth

I remember a little warmth,
Joey trotting the family through Norfolk lanes,
the small yellow trap swaying in the sunshine.

I remember picnics on Yarmouth beach
with enough blue sky "to make a sailor's trouser".
We ate cucumber sandwiches.  Penguin biscuits.

I remember dark evenings,
the small warm flame from a Tilly lamp
lighting the kitchen, and sometimes for supper
we had chicken, chocolate mousse.

I remember a warm holiday in France
squeezed into the back of a car,
singing old thirties love songs.

But will these small moments of warmth,
at the end, be enough to heat and split
the heavy stones that circle the human heart,
allow salt tears to trickle through the cracks?

                                                                             *

With very best wishes, Patricia                          

3 comments:

  1. This is wonderful, as ever, Trishpot xooxoxox

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  2. Dear Shahzaib, I have never read any Urdu Poetry, but would like to. Can you recommend a small volume please. Best wishes, Patricia

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  3. Thanks for the reply. This is poetry is translated in English.
    For a thousand years the narcissus has been lamenting its blindness;
    With great difficulty the one with true vision is born in the garden.

    ReplyDelete