Saturday 12 September 2009

After Mother was Buried


I draw a fingernail
through the ice on the inside of the pane
and see a single strip of the world.

Fog.
The trees likes ghostly sentinels
on the road.
A car going over the hump-back canal bridge
with a toot-toot.

I pull the blankets up,
my breath condensing in the cold air
the quilt has beads of moisture.

I glance at the ticking clock.
Twenty minutes before the rush
to travel ten miles to school
and I select a book
Tolkein or Enid Blyton?
I choose Proust.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh! This is so sad. All the little details are like watching a series of freeze-frames because life is too big to bear in its entirely. Beautiful.

Rachel Green said...

It was a difficult time. My bed bedcame my fortress.

sonia said...

beautiful and so sad. loved the single strip scraped through the ice. brought back memories of after my mum died staying off work in my flat and after a while starting to feel like Lara and Doctor Zhivago in that iced up house knowing you'd be found and dragged out.

Rachel Green said...

That's pretty much how I felt, except that I was still at school at the time.

sonia said...

that must have been very hard losing her while you were still young. Your mother sounded very vibrant from one of your old posts.

spacedlaw said...

A sad story, I am sorry to read that it is yours.

Rachel Green said...

Thank you.

It was over thirty years ago now, and just a memory.