Filling in the Blank

 Filling in the Blank

‘In the blank space

between midnight and dawn,’

she began, and I thought,

What’s blank about that?

Does she sleep blankly,

never dreaming?

Do the large machines in her home

make no white noise in the night?

She obviously does not have

a cat or dog or even bird

with its own nocturnal agendas

involving sound and movement.

And outside in the street,

do no vehicles pass?

No animals or birds

scurry or call?

Is the dead of night

dead silent? 

What about breezes 

or rain, or sometimes thunder?

Even the tiny night insects

and spiders about their business,

unheard by our ears, move 

and un-blank the canvas.

But peace can be

surrounded by life

and does not require

blankness.

Written in response to Poets and Storytellers United's Weekly Scribblings #76: 'Writing a Blank'.

Better Late ...

Better Late ...

It would have been easy for her to fall yet again into the family story, widely and often repeated, in which my cousin Sue should have been her daughter and I Aunty Franki’s. Mum and Sue were polite, pretty, sweet; Franki and I were seen as intellectual, improper, eccentric.

Even Aunty Franki herself used to say it. I was secretly thankful I wasn’t born to her, with her screaming, volatile marriage to Uncle Bill, her wildly erratic care of her children. No wonder Sue loved visiting us. No wonder our lifelong rivalry for Mum’s attention. (Only 18 months apart, we were the eldest of our generation.)

It must have been that last time I stayed with her (living, by then, far distant) before she broke her hip and went to hospital, then nursing home. 

It was Sue, living so much nearer, who arranged all that, visited, took her on family outings … who phoned me and said, ‘Come now!’; who was already holding her hand, sitting up close, when I arrived. Who half-stood, then sat back down, deciding not to cede first place. 

We’d fought so often to be first with her! I wasn’t going to make a scene at her deathbed. I took the other chair, held her other hand, spoke to her of all the love people were sending. 

‘No!’ said Sue. ‘Far too late for that; she can’t hear you.’ I believed otherwise, but again subsided rather than argue.

After the funeral, a cousin’s new wife, oblivious of my identity, publicly expressed condolences to Sue. 

‘You were effectively her daughter, weren’t you?’ she said. (Aunty Franki was long dead.) Sue smiled and agreed.

Another cousin caught my eye, concerned. I gave a tiny shrug. 

 

After all, Sue was indeed the daughter to her, in her final years, that I was too far away to be.

And I had that memory!

That last time I stayed with her, I’d repeated the opinion that Sue might have been a better daughter for her. 

How easy for her to have agreed unthinkingly as usual. Seeming about to, she suddenly looked hard at me, straightened, and said deliberately:

‘I’m very fond of Sue. But you’re my Daughter, and I love you.’

Written in response to Poets and Storytellers United's Weekly Scribblings #75: Between What Is Right and What Seems Easy.

Statement in Context

 Statement in Context

‘I am calm,’ she declared, 

‘and in possession of myself’ –

proclaiming this with her eyes, 

her expression, her bearing 

(her rich clothing, 

her carefully arranged 

hair and accessories, 

mere background to her poise).

So I brought her home, 

where she gazes at me 

with constant composure – young, 

but someone to be relied on.

Always intrigued, my son 

searched her image many years later

for the artist’s name, and found 

Lucas Cranach the Elder. 

And found many versions 

of this painting. Also, 

it became apparent that my print 

showed only part of the whole.

She is revealed as Judith: 

Jewish heroine, slayer of the tyrant 

Holofernes. She cut off his head 

with his own sword.

‘An icon of female rage,’ 

says one description. But no fury 

shows on her face, nor in her pose, 

in any variation of the painting.

Holding the sword aloft 

over the ghastly head, 

she continues to assert

a now surreal, terrible calm.

Written for Weekly Scribblings #74 at Poets and Storytellers United, where Magaly invites us to convey the point of view of a character in a painting. This is perhaps more my point of view about her point of view – but that would actually be the case even if I fictionalised it and spoke as her. (That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!)

Background: I was working in a municipal library. Some posters arrived, including one which had not been ordered. Rather than go to all the trouble of sorting out the misunderstanding and returning it for a refund, the Chief Librarian asked if anyone would like to have it, and I volunteered.  Yes, the final image above is slightly different from the print I have, which is shown in the first image, framed and still hanging on my wall many years later. (The story is that Judith, a young widow, seduced Holofernes in order to kill him, hence the finery she is wearing.)

Click on middle picture for a better view of the various versions. It seems that several are on public display at different galleries.

Moths and Butterflies

 Moths and Butterflies

I thought they were butterflies

rising and dipping over the leaves, 

fluttering white, light glancing 

from their quick, shifting wings. 

So pretty, I thought. But my Dad

told me they were only cabbage moths,

spoiling our vegetables, eating holes 

in the greens meant for our dinner.

I observed later that butterflies were larger 

and had more colours – beautiful creatures 

that didn’t need to eat our food. They seemed

to need none; I thought they were fairies.

I think I’ve got it straight now. Fairies

are those flashes of light you see flitting

between visible and vanished. Butterflies 

are leisurely aristocrats, multi-coloured.

I haven’t seen white cabbage moths

since I moved to this part of the world.

But in Spring, dancing above my geraniums,

glinting like sunshine, are tiny yellow ones.

Written for Poets and Storytellers United's Weekly Scribblings #73: Butterflies and Moths.