carol

It is the time of Advent. Both of the little schools where I volunteer my assistance are preparing for Christmas. Nativity plays are rehearsed, songs sung, crowns, wreaths and cards are fashioned.
In Assembly we sing 'Away in a Manger', a carol that I remember well from my own childhood.

I am unprepared for the flood of emotion that causes me to falter on hearing the familiar melody and simple refrain. The closing words of the last verse pierce me to the quick. I can only hope that I will be fit for heaven at the time of my death, whenever that shall be.

peonies

My mother's garden is cold and quiet, the lawns pearled with moisture, trees gaunt and naked against a colourless sky. It is the Autumn of the year of my father's death and the opaque air of November clings to my skin like a shroud. A will to dormancy takes hold.

Yet I must prevail against grief and seasonal inertia, for I have a promise to keep, and a task to undertake. My mother is away, and I have vowed that in her absence I will transplant her much loved peonies, from a position that they have occupied for many years, to a different site further along the flowerbed, thus liberating them from the encompassing shade of a vigorous laurel, beneath which they are at present suffering.

I gather tools, and survey the bed. Against the dark, leaf littered earth show clusters of small pink points; the ruby of emerging peony buds, arranged in optimistic groups, signalling the closure of one year, the  opening of the next.

The plants are well established; I remember them from my childhood, recall my amazement each year at the magical unfurling of the tight drumstick bud, and the gradual emergence of the bounteous head of glistening petals; the miracle of life and growth made gloriously manifest.

The black cat, Minos, joins me, pressing against my legs, as I stand uncertain on the path, daunted by the prospect of the endeavour ahead of me, and almost regretting my promise, glad that my mother is not present to witness my nervousness. For peonies are sensitive, resentful of disturbance; I am anxious that the move might kill them. Besides which, I do not know how to move them; I do not know what they are like underground, and, the realisation coming upon me in an uncomfortable wave of self disapprobation, have neglected to research the project.

I bend down to caress the cat, whose jet coat gleams softly in the dullness of the day. When he steps away from me, pacing delicately across the damp earth of the flowerbed, I take the light fork, the one with long, slender tines, and sink it down into the clinging soil, remove it, and sink it again and again, at different points around the first plant. I am thankful that the buds are showing; it gives me an idea of where to dig. I begin levering the fork carefully against what I presume to be the root ball. But peonies do not have a root ball. Their heady glory eventually emerges from discrete brown tubers, deep beneath the surface of the soil. The rending of earth and plant fills my ears, causing me acute distress. I clench my teeth, and insert the fork more deeply, hoping to loosen the soil sufficiently to burrow my hand underneath the plant, and thus free it. The earth is chill and heavy, sticky and unresponsive; I struggle to work my fingers beneath the tubers in order to lift the plant in it's entirety. The peony appears in fragments. I have shorn some of the tubers in two; their ravaged surfaces are the rich yellow of butternut squash. I shed tears, knowing that I must repeat the whole process at least half a dozen times. I am overwhelmed by a sense of inadequacy, and pity for the plant whose quiet incubation I am so ruthlessly disrupting. I set the damaged tubers upon the earth, in the place where they are to be replanted, and begin to excavate the next. I now know how deeply I must engage the fork; understand something of the peony's habit of growth.

Prying the peonies from the ground, deciding on their fresh positions, and replanting them, occupies me for the whole of the day. The cat, as if sensing my discomfiture, remains with me for much of the time, taking advantage of pauses to request attention, slipping away on business of his own when I resume digging, A robin trills bouyantly above my head, from the sequestered haven of the laurel. I take some heart from the presence of both.

At last I have unearthed each peony, and laid it on the bed where I shall replant it. I reflect bitterly upon my lack of skill, and sensitivity with regard to the plants; to my anguished eyes, the scene before me resembles one of carnage. Numbed with cold, and the dread feeling that I may have ruined the plants beyond recovery, I begin to bury each tuber well underground, leaving the vulnerable bud just above the surface, as I had seen them that morning. I realise that I am mouthing apologies to them as I do so. The day closes upon my labour with grey finality. I collect the tools, clean the earth from the tines of the fork, and replace all in my mother's shed. Later, I sit motionless indoors beside the fire, both cats faithful at my feet, blind to all else but the dancing flames in the grate.

On subsequent visits to my mother I return anxiously to the bed where the peonies have been transplanted, hoping to see movement in the tight red tips of the new season's buds, taking comfort in the still vibrant, vital colour, the absence of decay.

As the season wears on, it becomes evident that the peonies have not only survived, they are flourishing. Over time, the glossy carmine spears miraculously extend, opening into hands of shining leaves. Compact flower buds centre each span. There seem to be many more than I planted; each fragmented plant has spawned another, much as the broom of the sorcerer's appentice multiplied when chopped into pieces. In May, the first glowing, satiny petals open to the sun, and the blooms release the rich, exotic scent so evocative of my youth. As she does each year, my mother cuts several in commemoration of the birth of my sister's eldest son, born at peony time, taking her a luxuriant bouquet from the garden in which my self and sisters played as children, and work as adults; our domestic Eden and safe harbourage, site of childish secrets and adventure. For my mother, it is the only place on earth where she finds a fleeting solace from grief, where entrenched in the perpetual cycle of rebirth and replenishment, she experiences some ease of mind, some relief from the loneliness of life without my father.

gunpowder

At the bottom of my mother's garden, undaunted by heavy rain, my sister builds a monumental bonfire from the trimmings and prunings amassed during the last few months. It is the beginning of November, and the family have gathered in commemoration of the date, to loose fireworks into the dark and streaming night, to huddle in talkative groups by the warmth of the fire, afterwards to repair to the house for a traditional 'bonfire supper'.

When my sister is satisfied that despite the downpour, the fire is quick and fierce, the rest of us assemble beneath a shelter tented over the washing line, and my mother, as excited as a small child, opens the gaudily decorated box of fireworks residing on the garden table, with much ceremony. We prevail upon her to be the first to choose from the promising array, and thus follows a succession of other, brilliant, starry choices, wreathing the drenched air with  bitter scented gunpowder smoke, throwing fantastical shadows of the old apple trees across the lawns, drawing shouts and applause, gasps and exclamation.

All the while, my sister tends the bright pyre at the bottom of the garden, her face and figure ruddied by the fiery glow; Hestia incarnate, devoted to the hearth and heart of family, staunch, tender, passionate.

After the fleeting glories of the fireworks are spent, the rain eased, the tent dismantled, and the family returned to the house, I join my sister by the dwindling embers, and find her in reflective mood, her usual vigorous animation of visage softened and quieted. She tells me that her self appointed task of setting the fire, and tending the blaze on this night always brings our father to mind. She says that she is certain, as at no other time, of his presence, that in the velvet shadow at her shoulder he is standing, clad in the old  overalls and the little blue cotton hat he wore for gardening, watching over her, watching over us all.

hummingbird

A vernal flush quickens the bright Autumn grass. Beneath the lichened, mossy boughs of the apple trees in my mother's garden, their fall cushioned by the lush verdure, lie the glowing fruits that this year we have not had opportunity to pick. In the blonde light of a balmy afternoon just past the Equinox, my mother and I stoop to the task of gathering the fallen harvest, filling tub and basket, trug and bucket, between us the easy conversation of those enjoying their labour and each other's company.

Unhurried, pausing often to point out to each other the tiny, delicate brown toadstools threading the  grass, we step from deep dewy shadow to brilliant glade, the low sunlight gilding the venerable old trees and touching my mother's silvery hair with fire. We speak of homely things, comparing recipes for apples baked with dried fruits of the vine, honey and bitter pungent peel, remarking on how many leaves there are yet to fall, reminiscing about past afternoons spent thus, all the while, the beneficient warmth of the late sun on our skin, the unspent dewfall glittering as though a bushel of diamonds had been cast across the lawns.

Something other than the little toadstools, the abundant fruit, the first fallen, papery leaves catches my attention, gives me pause to bend low to pick it up, and gasp with surprised pleasure at my find. It is a fragment of a garden ornament, fashioned from painted metal much weathered, but otherwise intact; a hummingbird of deepest emerald, tawny patina of rust marking the wingtips and long, tapered bill as though intended.

My mother is curious as to what it is that I have found, and I unfurl my fingers to show her the little bird in the palm of my hand, at pains to quell my desire to possess it. My barely supressed longing must have shown in my face, for my mother asks me as gently as though I were still a child, if I should like to keep it. Moved and tremulous, I breathlessly whisper my affirmation and thanks, thrilled by this unlooked for souvenir, unexpectedly gifted to me by the beloved garden and it's loving custodian.

I shall not forget that golden September afternoon, the sense of being infinitely priviledged in my companion and my surroundings, the bequeathed garden yet echoing to the presence of my father, as though my mother and myself were attended by his gentle spirit, and I have always, as precious and lovely keepsake, the hummingbird, talisman and charm against the day when my mother and the garden are no more.

new moon

In the luminous west, just proud of a gathering of feather edged, dove coloured clouds, gleams the steely sliver of the new moon, a precise, sharp tipped crescent, cut clean into the deepening ultramarine of an October twilight. Alone with the young moon in the back garden of a rented house in Somerset, utterly defenceless against the incursion of rememberance, I am recalled without warning to a garden in a more easterly county, there to gaze in retrospection upon an older moon, one waxed full and buxom, whose light embraces those standing together in commemoration of the event; a small family group, mother, father, and a daughter, one of three. Such a time ago it seems, that August evening during which we gathered to celebrate my father's newly restored sight; to be in his company when he first looked on the moon through the binoculars given as a gift, and exclaimed like a child at the wonders he could now see without the ghostly interference of the cateracts that had hitherto sorely distorted his vision.

Several years hence, he has departed this life, and his ashes are scattered in a county yet further eastwards, that which gave birth to him, but that seems woefully distant from the garden where I now salute the glowing sickle of the new moon in memory of him.

I find that I cannot curtail my tears, for although I am removed to a westerly region with a chosen one, whom I hold dearer than life itself, and have become accustomed, more or less, to our very different place of habitation, there persists a dull ache in my heart, a perpetual nostalgia for family, for places familiar, above all, a longing which cannot be assuaged, for the smile of welcome wreathing my father's face on beholding his daughters coming home to him.

the prayer

Deep in rural Gloucestershire, not far south of Cirencester, the tiny eight hundred year old church of All Saints, Shorncote is remote from it's village and reached only by a narrow country lane. Cool and quiet within, the simple interior is mostly unadorned except for an elaborately carved Royal coat of arms, and lit upon the fall of darkness solely by oil lamps mounted at intervals on the walls of the nave. Appreciative as I am of the humble grace and depthless silence of the building, it is, however, the unexpected paintings on the north walls of the chancel, and above the chancel arch that inspire within me much emotion and delighted surprise. They are mediaeval; according to the guide dating from the late twelfth or early thirteenth centuaries, and depict a regular, repeating pattern of rectangles, as though a wall had been painted upon a wall, each rectangle containing a ruddy, daisy like flower. A substantial fragment remains, despite the destructive plaster and wash of later periods, enough to be able to imagine the appearance of the chancel when the paintings covered the walls in exultant glory, crisp edged, poppy bright, surprisingly contemporary for all their naive rendering.

Each time I behold ecclesiastical paintings from the mediaeval period, I am astonished by the fervour, candour and directness of communication with which they were made, and passionately regretful that they should often have been obliterated by succeeding generations of church authorities, even though my partner has explained to me that faith evolves like everything else, and that the paintings may perhaps have come to be held as inappropriate, irreverent, possibly even blasphemous, or simply outmoded; that other interests were at work. However, I remain profoundly moved by such intensely realised evocations of faith in a God seemingly often vengeful, capricious and unpredictable, a God meting out such extremes of destiny according to one's earthly deeds, and it appears to me to be an act of desecration to have destroyed these works of art and religiosity from an earlier, unimaginably different and difficult time.

I am thankful for the exuberance of the remaining mural at Shorncote; it implies a God less exacting, one exhibiting painstaking attention to the minutae of life on earth; the very flowers at our feet, a God extending a merciful hand to those labouring in their faith and fields, One who cared enough for His creation to gift the painter thus. I feel uplifted, light of heart, grateful to the unknown and unknowable artist, or artists, as close to prayer as I have been since childhood.

When I told my mother of our intended visit to this, and other churches, being unable to accompany us, she asked of me that I should indeed pray for her, and although I usually find it difficult, if not impossible, to participate in her child like faith, on this occasion, I felt honour bound, and able,  to comply with her simple, heartfelt request.

I respect my mother's strongly held, if somewhat unorthadox, Christian convictions, finding particularly touching her belief that instead of resurection to an Heavenly afterlife, she will return to the earth following her death in the form of a modest, wayside flower; a daisy, or buttercup perhaps, her scattered ashes having nourished the soil to give rise to new life. The elegant, ancient, eight petalled blooms painted in a once brilliant ocherous red on the otherwise naked lime washed walls of the little church call her vividly to mind. She would have loved their symmetry and simplicity, would, if she had been able to be with us, have understood the intensity of the celebratory piety that had originated them. It seems appropriate, therefore, to answer her plea whilst gazing on this frieze of flowers, to offer both thanks for the endeavour of the painter, whose work remains to enchant the eye and refresh the spirit, and the prayer for my mother, whose passion is for the Creator, her children and the garden she shared with my father.

Standing alone before the innocent blooms, for my partner is gone outside, I enjoin the Lord to keep my mother from harm, ask that she should have many more years in which to care for her beloved garden, years of health and plenty, that her own, tenderly nurtured plants should flourish each in their season, that she may eventually leave the life with which she is at present so fiercely engaged in painless slumber.

Days afterwards, whilst joyously picking blackberries from a roadside bramble, she lost her footing and fell heavily on her back to the ground, sorely bruising her ribs and spilling her patiently gathered fruits on the pavement. On learning of her misadventure during our evening telephone conversation, I am conscious of an acute sense of shock, a feeling of outrage that she should have been hurt, a swift chilling of the blood in my veins, unwillingly being brought once more to recognise that she is increasingly frail and unsteady, although she retains an indomitable independence of mind and spirit.

I do not share with her my uncomfortable conviction that the prayer I uttered on her behalf seems to have failed, to have missed it's mark, that perhaps, after all, it found no recipient, but had been merely a whisper unto empty air, a hope against hope, a child's exhortation to a child's God, a God who shields one's parents, siblings and friends for all eternity, watches over the defenceless, mends broken wings and restores vanquished life; a God of immeasurable tenderness. Perhaps a prayer from one unaccustomed to worship is indeed doomed to failure, however sincerely intended. I am cast irredeemably into doubt, my mind swept agonisingly by loneliness and fathomless despair, not only for my mother, but for  those whom I also love, for the tide of all living things condemmned to suffer and to perish. In my distress, I forget the celebration of material life and of the God who makes it so evinced by the painter of Shorncote, the implication of the rightful cycle of replacement upon replacement, of evolution and extinction which embodies the drama of wordly existence, the unaffected, passionate connection which my mother maintains with her garden and her God. Instead I find myself most painfully and deeply bewildered, as much a child in my bewilderment as when a child I prayed each night for the safekeeping of my mother and father, my sisters and friends, the flowers, trees and creatures of the earth, those of the air and waters.

I ask my sister why our mother had fallen. She answers, "Because life is random".

sapphire

A narrow footpath flanks the playground of the infant school, where I help in the classroom during the afternoons. Each day, I pass along the path on my way to the school office, where I must sign in. I always arrive whilst lunchtime recess is taking place, and the children whom I have come to know are at play in the playground. More often than not, I am espied and the children run to the fence separating the footpath from the playground, calling my name and waving to me, which I find most touching and uplifting.

One  breezy, brilliant afternoon in early summer, I am hailed as is customary, this time  by a little boy whom I recognise as having been in the reception class where I help a couple of years ago, although I do not recall his name. I pause to speak with him, and he asks me a question, which at first I do not understand, but catch the word, 'artist'. Intrigued, I ask him to repeat himself, and then I realise that he is enquiring of me whether I am a "great artist"! Surprised, much affected by his question, I shake my head in denial, and reply that, no, I am not, although I would like to be almost more than anything in the world. He answers that he remembers me as having been good at drawing. I thank him sincerely, astonished that he should remember me at all, much less ascribe to me proficiency in a discipline I have not practised for years, although I do assist the children in their own work where appropriate. I take my leave of him, and continue on my way, a glow of appreciation having been kindled by the child's praise.

The little boy has eyes of an intense, unwavering, crystalline blue. They meet my own with the candour of childhood, ingenuous, confiding, reminding me that I have a duty to safeguard such innocence and vulnerability, however delighted and moved I am with the compliment bestowed upon me by one so youthful.

Later, I am given to realise that I have been made the gift of a new gem to hang on the necklace of compliments safely stowed in the far reaches of my mind; a sapphire, perhaps, of the same azure brilliance as the eyes of the little boy who unwittingly laid balm upon a wound.