Ruminations

 

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Let us bathe in milky November dusk and watch the riders heading home across the clifftop horizon.

Uncertain light pulls their shadows towards us, over ochre burnt corn. Scarred leather saddles, frayed reigns, kimblewick, curb chains, their song

Like a distant Rosary, a Buddhist chant, a Du’a or Kaddish, and the rattle of metal, a reminder of movement and the ability to listen and hear.

Our porch overlooks the field. Save there is no porch and there is no field, there is only our minds and an inclination to want to be near

To someone we know, when along the valley a church bell tolls, or a train horn blows, or a wounded buck bellows at the solitary, reflective moon…

Everything is over too soon, when you regard the festive mess. Everything takes so long to start, when the umbilical bonds of youth cocoon

Our hearts. Unwilling to let loose, the knife from the scabbard, or the unrepentant fire from the boundary of its hearth.

We have laughed together. We have cried separately. We have felt the warm sand pinched by the narrowing glass.

See the silkworm feeding on a mulberry leaf. Unaware of the riders, homeward bound after their long days toil, or of our thoughts

Later, when its dark, and the riders are forgotten, and wearisome gaslight cackles at the meaning of all these dreams… we may talk…

Or we may silently agree that its better by far

To listen to the wind and stare at the stars.

Shoreditchpoet Copyright DMM

Photograph by: Credit:Silvia Bonanno Stock photo ID:1596925586

How this poem came about:

Pat, my cousin, has a significant birthday on Tuesday 26th Nov.

I wanted to write something for her because she has always sent me a birthday card. She repeated this simple but considerate act with each of my four children.

We do not see Pat and her immediate family often, something I always intend to rectify when we do see each other — but, regrettably, never do.

Pat’s mother Nell, was a favourite aunt of mine growing up. Naturally motherlike, protective, kind and always cheerful — matching her husband Ted in these qualities.

They were of the war generation. Ted serving on the Russian convoys — keeping our then allies armed and fed.

Prior to their marriage, young Nell was central to her family back home. Working non-stop and keeping everyone laughing and positive. The Cleland’s were tough East Enders, narrowly escaping death under the Nazi Blitzkrieg on a regular basis.

On one occasion, after a severe bombing, Nell and her three sisters Connie, Dora and Annie crawled out of a Leicester Square cinema and embarked on the treacherous walk back from a ruined West end of London to an even more obliterated East End. On route, a young fire warden thrusted a baby into Nells arms. “Save him” the young warden yelled out as he disappeared into the acrid black metallic dust.

The young sisters took it in turns to carry the baby back to the ruins of their home. Eventually, finding the rest of the family laid on the floor of an old school hall, they handed the baby to their mother, who took the child to the nearest police station.

Is it any wonder that, from this stock, courageous, kind, cheerful and loving offspring found their way into the world?

Today, parallels of similar events across the world resonate.

I do not try to find hope, nor positivity in such distress. Suffering is real. There is nothing else to say.

However, it is also true to acknowledge courage and compassion. As we mature, some of us are left to reflect on events and stories — both personal and of our time. The contemplation of such things colours us. Manifestations of these reflections surface in a multitude of ways. Through creativity, via small and great acts of compassion. Sometimes simply by being a constant in someone’s life.

The simple act of sending a birthday card, is one such act, and whilst (unfortunately) seldom acknowledged in my case, it is always recognised and appreciated.

A little piece of all we are, exists, in simple acts of kindness.

DMM