a scrap of green curtain,
its pattern faded, its fabric worn,
kept throughout my time on this earth,
to remind me of the scent of Sunday mornings
when it was always summer outside;
in the springtime of my life.
a scrap of green curtain
folded in the bottom of a box;
its leafy design
forever imprinted on my mind.
once in a while
I hold it against my face,
inhale its musty age
and reach back toward those days
when I was awakened by the chiming of church bells
from across the hills.
inhaling the clean air,
I watched the fabric dance in time
to the jangling call
their leaves kissing, then separating,
preparing to kiss again.
with a palm on my chest
I could feel the sleepy rhythm of my breathing,
as from beneath the blankets, I made vague plans
for a new day of freedom;
I would swim in the stream, run through the fields,
play our latest and most dangerous game,
climb trees,
throw back my head, and sing like Julie Felix.
when the bells ceased their call to the faithful,
my mother came into the room;
a song from some favourite opera clean on lips
that smiled to see me awake.
later, her chestnut hair would be fragrant with vanilla
and the smell of freshly baked bread;
but not yet.
a scrap of green curtain
takes me back to when, just for a few minutes,
I would listen
to the silence of my world,
before the laughter and play began.
The Daily Post #Silence
©Jane Paterson Basil
A wonderful piece of writing Jane. 😃
PS
Can you help. Again 😊
As you know, I’m having problems with
my comments going into the spam file
of other bloggers.
Tonight I was told by a fellow blogger
that she found notification of my latest post
(Sunday evening)
in her spam file.
Can you check your spam file for me?
Alan.
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There’s nothing of yours, but my WP spam file has a message from Cassandra to say she’s nominated me for a bloggers award – your name is also on her list. Did you get a message from her?
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No. Nothing.
But, if you haven’t received notification
of my latest post, something is a miss.
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Everything is amiss all over the place. For a few days I didn’t get any notifications at all. I still can’t get to you by clicking on Monochrome Nightmares, so I’ll use Google.
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How beautiful and touching. The imagery is so poignant.
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Thank you. Maybe I’ve idealised my childhood, or maybe it really was as good as I remember…
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Usually a little bit of both.
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Sounds about right.
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Nothing wrong with idealising significant memories 🙂 They nourish, nurture and comfort.
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Sometimes…
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Such a lovely capture. I was right there with you.
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Thank you – it’s great to have your company 🙂
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So nostalgic. Like a slice of your childhood.
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I thought it was time I shut up about my son and got onto a happier subject 🙂
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Oh yes. Motherhood makes it so easy to forget we were individuals once with a life of our own.
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I remember how, when my children were small, I felt as if there had been no purpose to my life before I became a mother.
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Lol. My kid is small still but I wish there were some other purpose as well. Hence, exploring passion. Writing.
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There is another purpose. You carry it within you, and it will bloom.
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I like it how you insist on showing me the silver lining. Struggling with confidence at the moment so its a baLM.
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Such vivid memories. Very poignant. I would never have thought about silence like that.
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This goes back to the days when my senses were alert, and I listened separately to every sound, and then put them all back together again, and enjoyed the melody, and the silences between.
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There’s so much writing material to be mined from those silences in between.
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That’s just what I was thinking…
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I just love the imagery in your poems… they are so beautifully expressed that I feel I can see everything happening before my eyes….
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what a lovely thing to say! Perhaps it’s because the images and emotions I write about remain so vivid in my mind…
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Keep writing and I’ll keep enjoying what you write…😊😊😊
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Thank you for you generous comments.
When I stop writing it will be because I’ve either died or gone mad 🙂
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God bless with a healthy life… Amen🙏
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xxx
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