memory

found poem, London, autumn 2014

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When was the last time you had a first time?

I forget where we were.

Desire or restlessness?
Sheer frustration inspires new design;

I can’t remember where we were, I mean.

Design solves problems.
Robin Day cleverly extended two short pencils lives
by joining them together
with a piece of metal tubing.

Every stone tells a story;
not a multiple choice.

I had a strong interest in housing,
the relationships between our homes and ourselves being a particular area of fascination.
However, this is an emotive subject and managing the enormity of the scope has probably been
my biggest challenge.

Bringing joy to everyday.

Now my heart turns to and fro,
In thinking what will the people say.
They who shall see my monument in after years,
And shall speak of what I have done.

everything that is letting happy in and other things life don’t give itself

Membership makes a difference.
Charity was born of the marriage of Poverty with Abundance,
and certainly it cannot come into existence
without the presence of the two,
side by side.

Unite in good cheer.
Engine rooms this way.
Make bold moves;
hop on hop off.

And the eyes of them both were opened,
and they knew that they were naked,
and they sewed fig leaves together,
and made themselves aprons.

take extra care of children

You never know what you are going to find.
I had to look at everything.

Notes on locations:  This is a more complex poem than the previous found poems. In order, the source texts are from: advert (Bakerloo line, Paddington, southbound), poster for concert, posters at Design Museum (DM), DM, overheard fragment of conversation, Robin Day studio replica at DM, advert, exhibition subtitle, James Christian quoted in DM (abridged), poster, Inscription on Hatsheput’s obelisk (DM), scrawled answer to question ‘What is good design?’ at DM, writing on a wall at Tower of London museum, quotation on fence around building site near Stonecutter Court, Starbucks poster, Sign at Tower Bridge, scrap of paper at DM, Routemaster Bus, Genesis 3:7 quoted at ‘Woman Fashion Power’ exhibition at DM, sign on tube, two fragments of David McCandless’s talk for the Royal Statistical Society, pattern on a scarf (DM).

Expecting

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I am pregnant
with my own younger self.
She is waiting to be born in me,
an adult, almost forty.

I see her playing in the past,
skipping, smelling flowers.
When will she turn around
and step into her future?

I move closer,
hold my breath,
and I can hear her singing
softly to herself.

She sings the music
of the trees, the words
of butterflies,
and hums along with bees.

Held by the moment,
attention ripples
from her skin, her eyes.
She is utterly alive.

I call her name.
She looks around perplexed,
cannot see me,
scans the sky.

I call again,
regret the urgent tone.
How did that
fear get there?

And so I spread a blanket,
set out cups of tea and cake.
I read my book and let my presence
gently draw her close.

Yes, I sit and wait.

packing

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Soon,
I am going to have to pack my thirties away.
(It’s a good thing I am a neat packer.)
Large things first, wrapped in tissue,
lightly scented with nostalgia
a boyfriend
a break-up
faint spritz of –
– just what did I wear?
cards tucked into shirts and
memories of burning most of them
at the beach.
(and to be honest at home too in an
oven-proof dish I later had to throw away.)
I fold in the kite
that would not fly away
pink tail.

I tenderly lie
memories of Lucy on the bed
and gaze; how to store?
how to keep in perpetuity?
wrap in vintage lace she would
have loved, retrieve the tiny
silver heart from the cancer ward
where I took it in advance
to show her that
love goes ahead.
And round them tuck
snapshots, carrying her coffin,
loving her daughters through grief and
someone offering me a lift.
(I’d worn heels, of course I had.)

Do I let a blackness be stored there?  Will its smell
permeate happier scenes?
On consideration I put a
tiny sniff of it
in an air-tight pot, in case I need to
uncork it to remind me
to treat myself gently
when I attempt the impossible.

Hmmm half-full.
It’s time to navigate
the conception of a dream.
Do I pack what is yet unfinished?
Or keep it out?
I give it a shake, see what
might fall away.
I pack a meeting, a moment,
and several encouragements
in a gold leather bag,
easily retrieved at will.

And so some of the more
cumbersome objets:
Two weeks of terror in Bali,
a surfboard and a rat,
incessant hum of air-conditioning unit
unmaintained for decades.
Pristine dawn sea and sky
breathtaking, divine;
curl them round a friendship bracelet,
a sarong never actually used.
I wish I’d got those billabong trousers
like a surf chick.
Ten birthdays in a tube,
pearl pearl pearl
loved loved loved.
Cards, presents, flowers, cake
(one year three cakes, a triumph).

Oh, I turn around and I
had forgotten that.
One evening spent
in the neonatal unit with
my friend and her husband
while her baby died
(nearly),
and several trips behind the
locked doors of the mental health unit
reassuring her
that we were still alive,
really, feel my hand, it’s not
the afterlife just yet.
I pack it with the lavender heart
I gave her to tell her
love is real
love is real
love is real
and which she happily returned.
The lavender can hold its own against the smell of death.

And now precious days,
hours, years:
Two weddings,
two nieces,
two nephews
and all packed in with the sound
of laughter, singing and tiny baby cries
and the sh sh sh
of new parents’ futile attempts
to guarantee a night’s sleep.
One pair of 3D heart glasses
one sound of string quartet
one afternoon long cuddle,
one fleeting glimpse, two,
three, fleeting fleeting all.

And now I drop in camping trips,
post break up, glorious community
weekends, packing one house,
growing another,
two piano exams and
hours of practice,
tens of running trips
hours of pilates (dog accompanied)
years in my very favourite café
squeeze squeeze in and around
every gap crammed
telephone calls without
end or size, mountain moments,
haircuts, dresses, concerts,
and I haven’t even mentioned
work!! Oh how oh how will it all fit?
Should I take
something out?

It’s too late, the lid is closing,
what’s there will stay there;
what’s not will just be
left behind.

things I want to tell my children but might forget – bathing

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But before we go to France let’s talk about a few more things to do with getting up.  After breakfast, I like to have a bath (I would like to have written ‘take a bath’ because this is how people in olden times might say it and it is like a wink to the past to do this, but really I would normally say have a bath).

Quite a lot of people think that there is no time to have a bath in the morning.  Maybe it is because you haven’t arrived in your life yet, but I love to have a bath and because I am in charge of my own time and not (yet) sharing it, I can.  When you arrive in my life you will probably start by being bathed in the evening before bed.  This is nice too because you can go to bed all clean.  I am not sure, we will all have to see what works for us all.

But back to bathing.  Whether in the morning or at night, a bath is a special event for several reasons.  Firstly, it is a real privilege because in the time and place we live, we have warm running water.  Secondly it is like swimming and your whole body can enjoy the pleasure of being in a comforting environment.  If you are grown up like me, bathing also connects you to lots of happy memories of childhood, and for all of us bathing connects us to people who have lived since the beginning of the world, because bathing is common to many cultures (a culture is build up of actions and thoughts in a particular place or group over time); people have always needed to get clean.  In the bath you are your most ordinary self.  No one is expecting anything of you and it’s clear that you are skin and bones and toes and legs and arms.  It is easy to forget this at other times.  It’s also somewhere where you can smell beautiful smells that sometimes you don’t have time to take in.  I love rose and peony but I also love seaside smells and richer scents like verbena and fir and lemon.

When you are in a bath there is a fun game you can play which is called Bubble Factory.  You put bubble bath in and then see how much foam you can create by agitating the water to make bubbles.  This is particularly fun if you are in the bath with your brothers and sisters.  Also, you can make foam hair and beards and pretend to be Father Christmas, and you can make designs in foam on your tummy.  Foam is amazing!  It’s incredible that you can create it from just a tiny bit of soap and water.  Once my brother put bubble bath in a special bath called a spa-bath and it made so much foam that the room was filled almost to the ceiling and he couldn’t see the door to get out!

So a morning bath can set you up for a happy day because of all the lovely things that you get to experience in the water.  In the house I live in now, I can also see the sky from the window in the bathroom which means that sometimes I can lie in the bath and watch clouds float past.  Then it’s like there’s foam in the bath water and foam in the blue sky, which makes it feels like the inside and outside worlds are singing call and response to each other.