Elena,a baby wrapped in woollen clothes.
On the last train,Warsaw to Moscow,
[ change Niegoreloje.]
1939.Father,mother,brother
You passed through the Arctic Wastes of life.
Still as if travelling on a train
To an impossibly far destination.
As you left, the German Army crashed into Poland
Lost,your aunts
Your cousins.
Your culture.
How does God select the damned?
You had your own baby,here in England,
Not lost like all those others.
Your father died by his own hand,
The hand of history;
The fingers twitching,
Not sure where to point.
Then settling into frozen grief
A sculpture only your mother saw.
You saw too,Elena.
You always saw,though you can’t remember.
The long journey,your mother’s breast,
Your father’s silence.
Only the dead know that silence.
Only the dead weep
With the rocks and stones .
And the ice in each eye
Fell like snow down your cheeks
As you held your own infant.
Warsaw to Moscow,
Moscow to Jerusalem.
Always journeying
Looking for what they can never find:
The home they left behind
The presence of the dead
Lying in gaunt heaps
Like rubbish.
Your aunts, Elena.
Your cousins.
You never knew them.
But there’s a hole in your mind
Through which the Polish wind blows forever
Day: June 17, 2018
Forty five things I learned in the Gulag
In deep
A very old poem I have copied from myself without permission
Oh my dentist is handsome,a very fine man
He seduces women with his frying pan.
He cooks them eggs and fries some ham
And just now and then, cooks up spam.
He knows all the wiles and the tricks of the trade
To win the hearts of the charming young maids.
but when they see him in his surgery
but when they see him in his surgery
They pick up their handbags
And out they flee.
So now he’s decided to charm the older ones
By making jam and baking scones.
He makes them tea and pours it out.
his tea pot has a very large spout!
He plays soft music and says a few kind words
Then he tells ladies how to see irrational surds.
It worked on me and now I am
Totally in love with this most intriguing man.
I boil his hankies on the kitchen fire
And write hime poetry he says is rather dire.
But when we go to lie down on his couch
A spring is sticking up,so he screams.Ouch,ouch.
So now I suggested we use the surgery,
As that reclining chair is big enough for three..
For I always take the cat along on dates with me
And he will lie just behind my knee.
But my dentist does not want to have Henry there
He thinks his dental chair will pick up Henry’s hair..
I offered to clean it with a kitchen cloth
As I’m sure I can get all those cat hair’s off!
I sit here waiting,wondering will he call——-
A fate that is common to us women, men and all.
But when at last the bell begins to go
I am listening politely to a very loud radio.
So consummation is deferred again
I feel quite sorry for this lovely gentleman.
but now I’ve taught him how to send a text
but he ‘s not sent on yet so I am feeling somewhat vexed.
I have a feeling this love is too bizarre
Making out in the dentist’s surgery chair.
So now I’m thinking of how a doctor would be,
And wondering if he would allow me to sit upon his knee?
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The Future
My space
Oh Jesu
Affect matters more than numbers do
Reason without love ,so blind to ends
Rational means were used to kill our Jews.
Searching Europe’s “haystacks” for a clue
Reason makes its wondrous, obscene blend
Affect matters more than numbers do
When Belsen was relieved, who bought the glue?
The bones of suffering dead might,did offend
Rational calculaters tortured Jews.
Was Jesus rational, what the end he knew?
See his mother Mary, weeping,kind.
Affect matters more than numbers do
By the Christians, Jesus was abused
His brothers and his sisters barred, disdained
Factories were used to gas his Jews.
How to see what matters in the end
Hate outweighed by Love, controlled not blamed
Affect matters more than numbers do
Rational calculations ,G-d, oh G-d, Jesu.
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Beautiful nature photographs by Mike Flemming
http://home.btconnect.com/mike.flemming/butterfl.htm
Mike has been taking photos all his life but now has more time to do it.Why don’t you get a camera or use your phone and start a new hobby? I do it although I have no technical skills.Again my technical skills in art are not very good but I still like to try.
Essex UK.Drawing by Katherine
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Success of the day
My right forefinger is now only double its usual size
Burned my 10th pan.Cleaned cooker with brillo pad.Pan soaking as luckily it is not nonstick.
Broken 6 soup or ceral bowls..wedding presents
6 Mugs from 10th Wedding Anniversary
8 Polish dinner plates given me by a neighbour who was from Poland
Found 2 Kindles and a banana under the sofa.Failed to locate husband there or under bed
Need a new bed.Forgot to turn off electric blanket in March
Cleaned bath and got into it and alas some Flash bathroom cleaner.Did wonders for my rear end.It’s still burning.No bath needed till Xmas.
Memo, clean bath after not before using it,ditto WC
Thinks,safer to have a bed bath if only there was a nurse here to do it or Mother!
Grandad used to bath us in a tin bath… can one still buy them?Much safer than running water
Do we really want all mod cons or is it a plot to rip us off?
Have rehung a picture on the wall after 5 years behind a chair.Removed painting by husband to donate to Cancer UK as some of us may need them more than pictures
Had hair cut off to prepare for remote chance of very hot summer and to save money .. looks like it will be a year before a trim is needed
Just a faint chance irate husband will rise from dead screaming, you know I don’t like you with short hair.But I am not optimistic.Neither is the hairdresser!
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Me holding my little sister
Mike Flemming has improved this tremendously.It is very old [so that means I must be too]
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For as we’re nothing, we are free
Sacred the love the rose dwells in;
Thorns protect what lies within.
Precious flower designed for bliss
Consummated with a kiss.
Eternity is one moment
When chattering minds are each silent.
The warp and weft of life itself
Has value more than human wealth.
So passive be, with patience blessed
Focus wide and all relaxed
We wait like this with music ‘joyed
So quietly played, all hurt’s destroyed.
The rose by nature of design
Gives peace to both the heart and mind.
And so it is with this green world
Of blossom, bush, and petals curled.
In a storm small butterflies
Dance in spaces small yet blithe.
Between the hailstones., they will live
And of themselves entirely give.
We too find our sacred space
When with nature we embrace.
We like flowers must grow and die.
We fall to dust and thus shall fly.
In the sunlight dust motes dance
As if by brightness full entranced.
We, like them, do not compete
For that love which us completes
For as we’re nothing, we are free
For God made you and God made me.
As we have no pride or will
We trust in One who will fulfil.
Note : self-abandonment, which is a practice of the mystics .is abandonment to God.This desire for self-abandonment can be used by totalitarian regimes to make the crowd do their will.Like other of our desires, it has to be directed rightly.So we move between this passivity and active thought and will which guides us rightly.We must not abandon ourselves to governments or politicians and leaders, especially Popes or other religious leaders.
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Who are we to choose when loved ones die?
To fulminate against the hands of fate
To vent our anger on beloved friends
Will not repair our ills and our mistakes
But may bring friendships to a bitter end.
For who are we to know what is the best?
Who are we to choose when loved ones die?
And do not think this is a needed test.
As if on us God wastes his time to spy.
Once we were a joining of two cells
The lively sperm, a salmon riding high.
The egg awaiting without need for bells
Is fertilised and grows that which shall die.
Astonishing that we should live at all.
Unsurprising, that a loved one falls.
How my heart sings 