I'm with you, Max, understand your feeling exactly. Memory is a slippery
many-headed beast. Andrew
2009/1/14 Max Richards <[log in to unmask]>
> Aide Mémoire
>
> Were she alive I'd still be phoning
> my sister on a Sunday
> to ask 'what do you remember?'
> about this that or the other thing
> when we were together.
>
> Without her I'm diminished –
> she went into the dark
> taking totally away
> her store of images and phrases
> coloured and textured
>
> that enriched me when she responded
> 'yes, I remember, and also....'
> What if some were dreamed up,
> embellished, enlarged,
> made brighter or darker?
>
> They were fuller than mine, richer,
> more grounded, more populated,
> part of a long story. Today
> I've been wanting to ask
> 'what was it about that Mrs Gray,
>
> who came to our house to stay
> so our parents could have
> some rare short time away?
> She was their friend, and trusted.
> Why did we dislike her so much?'
>
> Maybe my sister would say
> 'don't you remember
> how she would frown,
> and not hear us? Her cooking!?
> How dismal mealtimes were?'
>
> I think I recall Mrs Gray,
> come for a long stay later,
> silent, motionless all day
> on the settee, staring straight ahead.
> She'd lost her son (in the War)
>
> and her husband before that.
> To the living she no longer
> had anything to say.
> Goodbye again, Mrs Gray.
> Goodbye again, sister.
>
> Wednesday 13 January 2009
>
> Max Richards
> Doncaster, Victoria
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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>
--
Andrew
http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
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