Cold Christ child

                                                                          Leonardo da Vinci

 Dear Reader,

 

Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor and architect.

Although he was known for his dramatic and expressive art work, Leonardo also conducted dozens of carefully thought out experiments and created futuristic inventions that were groundbreaking for the time.  His keen eye and quick mind led him to make important scientific discoveries, yet he never published his ideas.

He never married, and it cannot be stated with certainty that he had a sexually intimate relationship with any person, male or female, nonetheless art historian Raymond Stites suggested that Leonardo was romantically involved with Cecilia Gallerani who was the subject of his painting Lady with an Ermine.

He was most likely to have been a vegetarian and historians have claimed that minestrone was his favourite dish.

The Last Supper is one of the most famous paintings in the world.  It represents the last 'dinner' between Jesus and his disciples.

 

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I have always wondered why The Christ Child was painted with no clothes on. Very strange when you consider how cold it must have been at night.

                                                                        *

From Dorothy Wordsworth   February 21st  1802 in Cumberland

'A very wet morning....Snowdrops quite out, but cold and winterly; yet, for all this, a thrush that lives in our orchard has shouted and sung its merriest all day long.

 From Richard Hayes  February 22nd 1773 in Kent

'I observe now Spring begins by my Crocusses and Crown Pearls under hall window, with yellow rose budding for leaf.

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Cold Christ Child

 

Why did Murillo, Fra Filippo Lippi,

Leonardo da Vinci paint

the Christ Child nude?

Did they not know of night-time cold?

 

Was the hot Levantine wind

blowing in the midday sun,

enough to stay the chill of evening

and warm this precious child?

 

They painted the Madonna in a dress,

the soldiers fully clad

in jerkins, armour, helmets,

the angels in sumptuous robes,

but the Christ Child is left on marble floors,

or dandled in laps,

with nothing to swaddle and secure him.

 

Could it be that this cold start

was not enough 

to set alight the love

needed to save us all?

 

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With best wishes, Patricia

 

 

 

 

 

 

Betrayal

 Dear reader,

I think I took off my poem "Betrayal" before time last week, but as so many of you were able to relate to this poem I have decided  to put it up on a week day so anyone who missed it can have have another chance.

 

 

 

Betrayal

 

 

You were always there

for me, as I for you.

You read to me

you laughed with me

you told me stories

of magic and imagination.

 

We travelled north and south

to Scotland and the Western Isles

enjoyed Dorset, Devon, Cornwall.

Went to see the Lakes

peeped into Beatrix Potter’s house

felt cold in Dove Cottage where

you put my hand in your pocket.

 

We were one heart beat.

 

But you have gone.

Now I have to try to live

another life

with you not there,

with someone else perhaps,

someone to fill the empty gap

you left me with.

 

 Please forgive me darling

                                                                                 *

With very best wishes, Patricia

That Was Then

 Dear Reader,

The river Evenlode is a tributary of the Thames in Oxfordshire.  It rises near Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire in the Cotswold Hills and flows south-east to the Thames, its valley providing the route of the southern part of the Cotswold Line.

The river flows for 45 miles from source to the River Thames.   The name Evenlode is modern, until the late 1890s the river was called the River Blade, hence the name Bladen.  The Ordnance Survey of 1884 already uses the name Evenlode.

The river joins the Thames approximately one mile down river from Cassington on the reach above King's Lock, 3 miles north west of Oxford.  The river is privately owned, used for fishing and other leisure activities.  Hilare Belloc commemorated the river in some of his poetry. 

 From D.H. Lawrence   February 15th 1916 in Cornwall

"Here the winds are so black and terrible.  they rush with such force that the house shudders, though the old walls are very solid and thick.   Only occasionally the gulls rise very slowly into the air.  And all the while the wind rushes and thuds and booms,  one forgets the rest of life.  It shuts one in within its massive violent world.   Sometimes a wave bursts with a great explosion against one of the outlying rocks, and there is a tremendous ghost standing high on the sea, a great tall whiteness.'  

 

From James Woodforde  February 18th  1795 in Norfolk

'Very hard frost with strong easterly winds, a black frost......Had a fire again in my bedchamber to-night.' 

 

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That Was Then

We made our home
where the west wind blew
and the sun shone, sometimes
we walked where people
we met in the street
or in the country lanes
exchanged news,
people well known to us
growing infants to children,
teenagers to married couples.

We walked by the Evenlode river
up into the fields where
butterflies gathered in the clover.
We saw horses grazing,
wheat fields full
of red remembrance poppies,
the first primrose and bluebells
in the spring, foxgloves,
cowparsley dressing the hedgerows,
summer roses,
the first autumn leaves
fluttering to the ground,
and winter snow.

He walked ahead,
I followed.
We held hands, embraced,

but that was then.

                                                                        *

With very best wishes, Patricia

 

                                                                         

Betrayal

Dear Reader,

Cornwall

Cornwall has large reserves of tin which was mixed extensively during the Bronze Age by people associated with the Beaker culture. Tin is necessary to make bronze from copper, and by about 1600 BCE the West Country was experiencing a trade boon by the export of tin across Europe.

An independent British polity was established in Cornwall and was defended against Saxon incursion for many hundreds of years.   Not until 838 were the 'West Britons' finally subdued and for centuries after this Cornwall retained many of the marks of a separate country.

Cornwall, or Kernow as it is known in Cornish, has a unique Celtic heritage and is considered one of the Celtic nations.  The Celtic nations are made up of Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Brittany and Cornwall.

The Cornish Pasty is the undisputed national dish.  Beef, potato, swede, onion, salt and pepper folded in pastry to make a D shape and side crimped.   The original Cornish pasties were eaten in the darkness of Cornwall's coastal mines.

                                                                               *

From D.H. Lawrence    February 9th   1919 in Derbyshire

'It is marvelous weather - brilliant sunshine on the snow, clear as summer, slightly golden sun, distance lit up.  But it is immensely cold- everything frozen solid- milk, mustard everything.  Yesterday I went out for a real walk-  I had had a cold and been in bed. I climbed with my niece to the bare top of the hills.  Wonderful to see the foot marks on the snow - beautiful ropes of rabbit prints, trailing away over the brows; heavy hare marks; a fox so sharp and dainty, going over the wall:  birds with two feet that hop; very splendid straight advance of a pheasant; wood pigeons that are clumsy and move in flocks, splendid little leaping marks of weasels coming along like a necklace chain of berries, odd little filigree of the field mice; the trail of a mole - it astonishing what a world of wild creatures one feels about one, on the hills in the snow.'

From Thomas Hardy    February 10th 1897 in Dorset

'In spite of myself I cannot help noticing countenances and tempers in objects of scenery, e.g. trees, hills, houses.'

 

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Betrayal

 

You were always there
for me, as I for you.
Your read to me
you laughed with me
you told me stories
of magic and imagination.

We travelled north and south
to Scotland and the Western Isles
enjoyed Dorset, Devon, Cornwall.
Went to see the Lakes
peeped into Beatrix Potter's house
felt cold in Dove Cottage where
you put my hand in your pocket.

We were one heartbeat.

But you have gone.
Now I have to try to live
another life
with you not there,
with someone else perhaps,
someone to fill the empty gap
you left me with.

Please forgive me darling.

                                                                         *

With very best wishes, Patricia

                                                                                                             

The Mind Cupboard

The Mind Cupboard

 Dear Reader,

 

I know this poem goes on my blog fairly frequently but since, it seems, that it is your favourite I thought it could have a spring outing.  There is so much written and talked about mental illness today in the papers and on the television that it seems to be a limitless subject. I myself have severe anxiety as you all probably know from my pieces about the chimp. This is the chimp that lives in our heads and is really there to protect us from danger. But some are overactive.  Mine is. He is constantly on the rampage, telling me not to do anything much in case of misfortune.  I have learnt in the last few years not to take much notice of him, but I have pills that help out if needed.

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I have been reading an excellent book this week called "The Summing Up" by W. Somerset Maughan.  In a nutshell it is saying that however much you read from philosophers, writers or academics no one is able to tell you exactly how to live your life.  You simply have to work it out for yourself.  He was brought up by an uncle who was a Christian clergyman but exposed no signs of Christianity in his own life.  Maughan decided that there was no God, unless he was a benign personality, and he saw nothing of that.  

He also said that most men were, on the whole, made of much the same material.  Good and bad, kind and cruel, loud and quiet., and so on. He travelled all over the whole and came to this conclusion.  I agree.  All people are flawed, just in different ways. I myself don't know anyone who is normal and perfect.  I don't suppose there is anybody like that and perhaps they would be insufferably boring.  Even saints must have limitations.

                                                                                       *

From James Woodforde  February 1st  1799 in Norfolk

'Very hard frost with much snow and very rough easterly wind....I don't know that I ever felt a more severe day.  The turnips all froze to blocks, obliged to split then with beetle and wedges, and some difficulty to get them on account of the snow - their tops entirely gone and the lay as apples on the ground.'

From Katherine Mansfield    February 1st  1915 in Buckinghamshire

'There is a glimpse of sun.  The trees look as though they were hanging out to dry.'

                                                                          *

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.

 

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The Kindle edition of my memoir "Half a Pair of People" is now available on Amazon here.

 

Reviewers have said:   It is a thought provoking and funny book.  Why not give it a try?

Very best wishes 

  

Patricia