And the memories.
I like the last stanzas, Max, for the slightly dark undercurrents to the love & remembrance...
Doug
On 2013-06-12, at 11:23 PM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Unlocked, that cabinet door, Max. Maybe, on some level, your mother was expecting her dainties to tumble?
>
> Bill
>
> On 12/06/2013, at 7:20 PM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Dainty
>>
>> Never in her long life
>> did my late mother
>> have money to spare.
>>
>> 'Self-indulgences'
>> were for other people,
>> and not respected.
>>
>> Folk admired her
>> 'dainty figure' -
>> she ate so little.
>>
>> When sixty, widowed,
>> travelling at last,
>> her selective eye
>>
>> desired small things,
>> lightweight - 'not cheap',
>> but 'inexpensive'.
>>
>> A small white mug
>> says 'Killarney',
>> a green angler swinging
>>
>> his rod to cast his line,
>> with maybe a salmon
>> taking the fly. In Auckland,
>>
>> it stood for where her father
>> had migrated from,
>> her Irish talisman -
>>
>> now my souvenir of her,
>> pushed neglected
>> behind our useful mugs.
>>
>> Tiny teaspoons with
>> tiny blazons declare
>> Hawaii, Acapulco,
>>
>> Panama - places
>> beyond my ken.
>> For her, all 'dainty',
>>
>> they'd fetch up
>> at child-eye level
>> in her china cabinet.
>>
>> The unlocked door, grasped
>> by her first grand-daughter,
>> swung forward heavily,
>>
>> everything crashed forwards.
>> Dainty teapots lost
>> their dainty spouts.
>>
>> Pewter and silver -
>> they were OK.
>> The spoons survived
>>
>> to come my way.
>> Glancing at them
>> I feel clumsy,
>>
>> overfed, all thumbs.
>> Should she be with me now
>> in Seoul, Korea, amongst
>>
>> these women of delicate
>> beauty, how she'd rejoice
>> whispering 'dainty, dainty'.
>>
>> I'm saying it for her.
>>
>
Douglas Barbour
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http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
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