The Smell of Lilacs

Summer has arrived and my window is open and I am suddenly caught up in the joy of birdsong and for the first time this year, I smell lilacs.

 

It's good to be alive isn't it?

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Legion Work

Legion Work

She knits. The same scrap of cherry-red wool, over and over, unwinding her rows and click-click, endlessly reworking her masterpiece: keeping her hands busy and her thoughts at bay.

"No thank you." "No thank you." Every time I ask. "Would you like something to eat? Would you like a drink?" So quiet, she draws no attention to herself, she doesn't want it.

This time, I sit beside her. She dresses in a rag-bag of clothes. She carries a rucksack and she wears a scarf. Summer and winter. I should have guessed, but, she's Caucasian you see, Irish in fact, and I didn't think... .

"My name is Mary," I say holding out my hand. Tentatively, she takes it, "Mary-Catherine". She speaks quietly. "Catholic?" I ask. I always ask: sometimes someone will want to rage against the church, or recall fond memories of it, or ask where to hear Mass. I listen. I wait. If there is something to be said, I will hear it.

"Muslim."So softly, I have to lean forward to hear.

Her story unwinds. Her husband, not here, her children in Birmingham. Gloucester is a smaller town, she says, she feels safer here. Her own faith community doesn't know her whereabouts, she has no contact with the Mosque. She's alone. Completely. So she sits in the Day Centre for the disposable and the dispossessed and knits the same cherry-red block over and over again.

"I was a member of the Legion of Mary when I was a child."

I am at a loss. This gentle woman fills me with a deep sense of sorrow. Mary and Jesus are both honoured by Islam, and I do not care to dishonour her faith, so I pause, awaiting inspiration.

"Shall we say a Hail Mary?"

Unhesitatatingly, she joins in.

"Please, light a candle for me." she whispers, as I leave.

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Daily Poem #13 Fortune Favours the Cookie Eater

Midnight.

First of May.

Wash your hair in dew and gaze into a mirror

(Careful! Don't break it!)

There he is. A tall dark handsome stranger

En route to Porlock.

 

Hand the cat (black, naturally)

To a neighbour and escort the

Stranger to Vegas,

Where, touch wood,

Your lucky dime will

Accrue, for you, a

MASSIVE fortune.

 

If not, head into the sunset with a shovel

And track down a rainbow.

Position yourself at its end,

Throw salt over your left shoulder, and

DIG!

 

If Mercury is in the ascendant and

Cassandra on holiday, you

WILL find that pot of gold

Stuffed with enough

Shiny silver sixpences to ensure

You will, if you're lucky,

Live

Happily

Ever

After

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Feeding The Beast

I am enjoying the second half of life privilege of examining the baggage of my life with a critical, if not unsympathetic, eye, and deciding what to tip into the dumpster.

 

Once I took hold of the fact that you can believe anything and get away with it (and possibly make money from it too: which is the ONLY explanation there is for Scientology) everything became clear. So away with all the stuff in religion that invites me to despise, judge or exploit anyone else. Amazing how much of a drag THAT was! Away too, with any kind of pretence that I am either better or worse than anyone else. I take my seat between heaven and earth and touch the ground in acknowledgement of my divine right to be here, and courteously invite everyone else to do the same.

 

Religion sorted. Politics, not so easy. I fell into the Twitter trap of throwing out an insult in the heat of the moment with no thought to the consequences. I denounced a politician, on my own side, as a snivelling cheat, and he called me out on it. Oh dear. Caught trolling.

 

I apologised at once for being rude, though I thought the comment may have had some merit, and immediately put myself in social media purdah for a week and went off to write poetry.

 

The point of this ramble is better made in the First Nation fable of two wolves at war in the human heart. One embodies all that is good, the other everything evil. Who wins? The one you feed of course.

 

So, the battle to make sense of this one beautiful life continues. I have no idea which of my wolves will win out today, but I do have a preference ...

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