Sunday, 3 January 2021

A New Day, a New Year (and a flare-up, left ankle)


 

                                                     A NEW DAY – A NEW YEAR  by me

                                                            The morning fires burn

                                                            Behind the long line of the horizon

                                                            Cloud covers come off

                                                            Grey flocks fold in sheets

                                                            All flat and squashed

                                                            Stars have fled West

                                                            Us passengers wake cross

                                                            To airline tea

                                                            And airline toast.


                                           A JANUARY WASHDAY IN SHEFFIELD  also by me

                                                        Black trees rattle in the icy wind

                                                        Through gale-smashed panes the greenhouse sings

                                                        Tights, shirts, tea-towels, bras and knicks

                                                         Dance to welcome eighty-six


Those poems were written so long ago. The second one carries its date within it, but i am not sure when I wrote the first - early in our expat travelling days, on our first big trip to the Far East I think. We were sleeping on the plane as the new year dawned and woke to a wonderful flat flocked cloudscape.  

And I do remember that January washday - icy cold, panes of greenhouse glass smashed in the storm, and my mother's washing flapping valiantly in the back garden.  I hope so much I will see my parents again, and that one day, my mother and I will be hanging out the washing together in the paradise earth.

My attempt to restart my walks, just half an hour a day, has not gone well.  We had a very disturbed night (Friday/Saturday) as my ankle swelled up, I was in so much pain I could barely move and the Captain had to help re painkillers. I did manage to get back to sleep.   Last night was not good either. My right shoulder - my only real one - is now troubling me because I had to get back on my zimmer briefly.

Yesterday it was the Assembly at Haysbridge - REJOICE IN JEHOVAH.  There is no way I could have got there, but, wonderfully, due to the Covid lockdown, the Assembly came to me!   I hope to post a few points from it as I digest my notes - assuming I will be able to read my mad arthritic scrawl.



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