Today - A Meme

Today,

Lorna phoned to cancel our poetry meeting;

I am relieved that I don’t have to go out.

Is this winter never going to accept defeat?

Outside my window 

a scene out of Brueghel, and the leaden sky promises no respite.

Trees bow their crowns before the bitter east wind,

and sleet and snow drive all life to seek shelter.

Even Millie refuses to go out.

I am thinking

of last night’s play, Allan Bennett’s ‘People'

brought to a screen near you by ArtsAlive,

straight from The Lyttleton Theatre in London.

Aston village hall was packed. 

not a soul under fifty.
If it weren’t for people like us,
incomers all,
there would be no art in England’s provinces.


From the kitchen
comes the rumble of the washing machine.
There’ll be a line of laundry
marching hand in hand with poetry.
Otherwise,
all is silence.
Hungry birds came to feed early today.
their busy flights stilled again,
holly hedges and yews their haven from the storm.


I am hoping
stray dogs and rough sleepers
will find a helping hand before nightfall.
That generosity of spirit
will succour those in need.


I am reading
the strange fiction of W.G. Sebald,
the man who described, like no other,
the eternal search of the dispossessed, displaced,
for a place to call home,
a place to belong.
Listen to him,
as he writes about waking up to the sounds of the city
intruding through his hotel room window:
"That then, I thought on such occasions,
is the new ocean. Ceaselessly, in great surges,
the waves roll in over the length and breadth of our cities,
rising higher and higher,
breaking in a kind of frenzy when the roar reaches its peak
 and then discharging across the stones and the asphalt
even as the next onrush is being released from where it was held by the traffic lights.”


I am planning
a simple supper for the two of us.
Some fish perhaps,
a medley of vegetables,
a dish of fruit for dessert.
Elderly stomachs sleep better on light meals.
Perhaps a glass of wine will further aid digestion.


Today
will end in peace and harmony,
if it is up to us.
Music, a book, a poem, a story on a flickering screen,
should there be one to please us both.
And now and then,
a look, a word, a question,
the offer of a cup of tea perhaps.
And as night falls
if we remember it,
we may just breathe a heartfelt sigh of thankfulness.

The lovely Cait O’Connor at her blog of the same name has introduced me to this  meme, she may even have invented it. Cait’s versions are infinitely more lyrical than mine, sheer poetry, but I thought a meme can equally well apply to the humdrum days of lesser mortals, the days when nothing much happens but days which have, nevertheless, a gently poetic rhythm because of their uneventful nature.