A Lifeline of Words
‘Read to me,’ she mumbled. Her words grow more and more incoherent - transient ischaemic attacks interrupting blood flow to the brain? I’m no doctor and her geriatrist describes her condition as ‘malaise and fatigue.’
She’s on the sofa, a bag of bones, stretched out to accommodate her broken hip like a traitor on a stretching rack. In her eyes her moods change, patterns in a kaleidoscope. Time stands still as the clock ticks on.
She is surrounded by her works of art, landscapes of Zambia, her home until last year, and portraits of black men. Her loyal servant holds a peacock feather and the town loon brandishes his homemade gun. Her art is a testament to her individuality and hard work. Beginning to draw at four, she did not ever have an art lesson. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Artists, she received a M.B.E and could have met the Queen but turned down the opportunity as The Beatles were awarded the same honour that year.
In the book case her novels, short stories and histories of life in the past share space with bronzes of animals and shields acknowledging her contribution to promoting local artists. ‘Keep writing,’ she told me a while ago. I tucked the encouragement into my heart like a schoolgirl hiding a secret note.
And so we ‘[slip] the surly bonds of Earth.’ Her coverless Treasury of Verse, in three parts has lost its index and is unnavigable. We pass Wordsworth, Keats and Yeats. I tumble down the rabbit hole to university days and English exams I didn’t studied hard enough for.
She agrees that the selection of poems is not obvious. For Lawrence there is no snake at the water-trough so we settle for Bavarian Genetians with their Plutonian gloom. ‘Campbell,’ she recognises as the unearthly horses of the Camargue foam at the rein. We read some of the war poets - Wilfred Owen’s Anthem for Doomed Youth, Siegfried Sassoon and Kipling. ‘Barny knew all the Kipling,’ she tells me.
It was de la Mare she requested from the start with a raspy, ‘Is there anybody there? Said the traveller, knocking on the moonlit door.’ Her lips struggle but her eyes dance and not with dementia. Her facial muscles relax.
‘I’ll bring my anthology when I come on Thursday,’ I promise as I kiss her goodbye.
‘Don’t forget.’ I hear as I slip away.
She’s on the sofa, a bag of bones, stretched out to accommodate her broken hip like a traitor on a stretching rack. In her eyes her moods change, patterns in a kaleidoscope. Time stands still as the clock ticks on.
She is surrounded by her works of art, landscapes of Zambia, her home until last year, and portraits of black men. Her loyal servant holds a peacock feather and the town loon brandishes his homemade gun. Her art is a testament to her individuality and hard work. Beginning to draw at four, she did not ever have an art lesson. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Artists, she received a M.B.E and could have met the Queen but turned down the opportunity as The Beatles were awarded the same honour that year.
In the book case her novels, short stories and histories of life in the past share space with bronzes of animals and shields acknowledging her contribution to promoting local artists. ‘Keep writing,’ she told me a while ago. I tucked the encouragement into my heart like a schoolgirl hiding a secret note.
And so we ‘[slip] the surly bonds of Earth.’ Her coverless Treasury of Verse, in three parts has lost its index and is unnavigable. We pass Wordsworth, Keats and Yeats. I tumble down the rabbit hole to university days and English exams I didn’t studied hard enough for.
She agrees that the selection of poems is not obvious. For Lawrence there is no snake at the water-trough so we settle for Bavarian Genetians with their Plutonian gloom. ‘Campbell,’ she recognises as the unearthly horses of the Camargue foam at the rein. We read some of the war poets - Wilfred Owen’s Anthem for Doomed Youth, Siegfried Sassoon and Kipling. ‘Barny knew all the Kipling,’ she tells me.
It was de la Mare she requested from the start with a raspy, ‘Is there anybody there? Said the traveller, knocking on the moonlit door.’ Her lips struggle but her eyes dance and not with dementia. Her facial muscles relax.
‘I’ll bring my anthology when I come on Thursday,’ I promise as I kiss her goodbye.
‘Don’t forget.’ I hear as I slip away.
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