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Memories of my sister Other times and other
people, gone now
but once real;
More than forty years since she was here; no almost fifty. An older sister, always around, bigger than me, stronger, better at everything; She's an artist, she gets upset easily; likes things untouched - her toys left alone, her room precise, her bed spotless She gets her hair cut and cries - it is the end of her life but she doesn¹t know it; the last great event before she is no more It¹s late November and walking along the empty streets, I kick the leaves, feeling sad, alone. Only a few more days filled with crying and upset and the struggles of being seventeen, then the quiet Newspaper clippings, dead flowers, forgotten pictures all that’s left as a record of seventeen years. |
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Memories of my mother
I found a letter my mother wrote to my sister in her old cookbook; ”Lock the front door and go to bed in my bed – I will call you - Mom.” If I could just go back for a moment to that time and that place– - our small house with the gold painted walls - my mom walking up the steps, coming home from work in her nurse¹s cap. Just one more day, sitting at the dining room table, the open window at my back letting in the late summer heat, the early evening light, the droning of a lawn mower. The six of us at the crowded table, spread with the summer food - slices of tomato, baked beans, cottage cheese, iced tea in a ceramic jug. Just one more night, out on the front curb, listening to the whispering adults on the front porches; lying back in the cool grass, watching the fireflies, waiting for something ominous to move in the night sky. There was no time without my mother then - and it’s true - she will always be there. |
Poem
for Barbara
She left with the leaves, blown away by the October wind; She left on a warm night with the full moon. Days before, she stood at the door, silently, silhouetted against the bright sun; saying goodbye to the light, goodbye to the world. What about the visits not made, the places not seen? - no matter; No more winters to endure; No more Novembers to wait through. She left with October, before the cold winds blew the world gray; She left with the yellow leaves, free to fly away |
Bloomsbury I
SMELLS
WET WOOL HEAT BREWING TEA YEAST AND WARM ROLLS TINNED MEAT DAMP WOOD MOLD OLD RAIN OLD MEN WITH MUSTACHES AND UMBRELLAS, SITTING IN CHAIRS EMPYING DINING ROOM GRAND STAIRCASE FADING RED STARRED CARPET HOTEL RUSSELL BLOOMSBURY |
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Dorothy
L. Sayers
I'm not sure how I came to be obsessed with Dorothy L. Sayers and her beloved Peter Wimsey. At any rate, I was determined to go on a pilgrimage to So I went to Finally, I went to St. Anne¹s Church in Soho DLS¹s final resting place where she was warden for some 12 years before her deaeth in 1957. It took three trips to the small tower where her ashes lay under the concrete before I could get inside and stand in that place, but I finally got there What is it that makes us feel connected when we stand where someone else is buried? And wandering around London on our second day there I stumbled into a small book shop and, wonder of wonders, I asked if they had any Dorothy L. Sayers¹ books and they said ³Are you her to look at her private library that they had recently purchased at auction?¹ So I now have three of DLS¹s own books and I have one signed and annotated in ink by her from her private library. I have the books sitting in my living room in a small house, in a small town in |