Cardigan

                                                                                         Patchwork skirts
 

 

 

Dear Reader,

It is funny, isn't it, how one gets attached to a certain piece of clothing and keeps it until it is so shabby that you have to let it go.  With great sadness I finally put my patchwork skirt in the bin after it was long past its sell by date.  This was years ago but I have had several garments since to which I have grown very fond and am very reluctant to put out.  After all they live your life with you.  They are round your shoulders, round your waist or covering your legs most of the day, they are part of you.  

Although I am about to be 84 I still choose with great care what I wear each day. I like to put my ensemble together to introduce to the world who I am being that day, which persona. (Most of my clothes are over twenty years old, I very rarely buy anything new.)  Could be a favourite pinafore dress with shirt and tie, so the school girl look perhaps, or long skirt, colourful scarf, big jersey, and brown boots so the hippy look.  Or whatever, its all for fun.  Well whatever style I choose it is with those much loved clothes that haunt my cupboards. My navy cardigan which the poem is about I will never discard, I simply couldn't.

                                                                                

                                                                                 *

From Thomas Grey   1761 January 18th in Middlesex

'I took a walk to Kentish-Town, wind N.W., bright and frosty.  Thermometer at Noon was at 42.  The grass remarkably green and flourishing.  I observed on dry banks facing the south that Chickweed, Dandelion, Groundsel, Red Archangel, and Shepherd's Purse were beginning to flower.   This is all I know of the Country.' 

 

From Katherine Mansfield  1915 January 20th in Buckinghamshire

'A man outside is breaking stones.  The day is utterly quiet.  Sometimes a leaf rustles and a strange puff of wind passes the window.  The old man chops, chops, as though it were a heart beating out there.'

 

From Richard Hayes  1762 January 21st in Kent

'As mild a day as though May.  N.B. I saw a spotted butterfly - brown in colour.'   

 

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Cardigan

 

Why is it that it makes

me feel safe?

 

I ease myself into it

do all the buttons up,

am encased in warmth

and love and security,

it envelops and hugs me,

the cardigan is my shell.

 

What is it about my cardigan

that makes me think of

honey sandwiches,

daisies in a china vase,

a curled up dog in basket,

doves cooing on the roof,

Ratty, Mole and Badger

and possibly Mr. Toad?

 

The cardigan is safety,

reminds me of nanny,

her ponds face cream

her lavender water

her loving arms and

her kisses.

 

Cardigan, the forever garment of love.

 

                                                                                         *

With very best wishes, Patricia