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Singing as the Darkness Lifts, 25 09 2023 (Episode 4)

Singing as the darkness lifts, 25 09 2023:

    This morning the air carries the aroma of an empty vanilla ice-cream tub. For a moment I doubt my senses and wonder if I am remembering last night’s dessert – a trio of sorbet and ice-cream, and yet those flavours were sour cherry, cinnamon and orange. A delicious treat to accompany conversation and time in the company of friends to just be.

    On the drive home the waxing moon revealed itself from behind thick cloud as a glowing pringle lamp.

    Looking back on my week I see that it was composed of seized moments: A trip to Kent, a day sharing my art, dinner out on a Sunday. Conversations, listening, thinking time and laughter all mingling together and swirling now in my head like marbling inks on water. 


 An apple from my mum beside an apple for my mum

 

An Apple for My Mum

 

I need to tell you exactly what colour it was.

Did you ever suck an American boiled sweet –

a blue one –

slip it out of your mouth

hold it to the sun to admire it

before sliding its smoothness back in

and licking the wet sugar coating from

the pads of your thumb and index finger?

It was nearly that blue.

 

And did you have that gel toothpaste

so bright you squeezed it the full length

of your brush’s bristles

even though you knew the tube

said ‘pea-sized’?

The kind that had you wondering how blue

made teeth white?

It was almost that kind of blue.

And it shone

like the first strokes from a bottle of nail polish

labelled ‘electric blue’.

 

And there it was

hanging from the branch of a tree

within reach,

four firm knuckles at its base

and no one had picked it.

 

So I got it for her, that bluest of apples,

and all the way to her house

excitement held my stomach captive

as I imagined her biting into it

or wanting to put it on display

for the whole world to see.

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