Easter Bonnets

This is what the blossom trees were sporting last week before we had to put away our Easter bonnets and revert to our woolly hats since, this weekend, it was beginning to look a lot more like Christmas, what with the snow on Easter Monday mingling with the ornamental cherry petals already falling off. Even the daffodils looked nithered, although they might have been trying to hide from the children picking bunches of them under the indulgent eye of an indifferent parent in our park.

It is quite a strange time, it seems. Not only has a new life force been discovered in the world of physics but in the world of psychics, one of whose pop up adverts I clicked on in a moment of late night idle curiosity, something to do with Jupiter means I only need the 'Keys to my Destiny' to start a new life myself. According to the Extraordinary Chris who, all the way from la la land in America, has tuned in to my need (for a fee which is diminishing each time I ignore the next email) to purchase a Talisman, I will then be introduced to my Three Days Of Light. Chris likes capitals and he is, at least according to himself, My Dear Friend. Isn't it strange that these three days happened to be coming along for me right when I clicked on the advert?

Mind you, in the increasingly insular world of lockdown, it's hard not to clutch at straws, isn't it, but not perhaps, men of straw, even the Extraordinary Chris (may all his gods go with him, as the late lamented Dave Allen used to say)? He is doomed to continued Concern, Disappointment and Eternal Wonderment at my Hurtful Lack of Curiosity as he puts it, without any hyperbole at all. Well he isn't quite right, I did wonder if it would give me a giggle, and it has. The threatened last email has so far not been although I'm sure the Three Days of Light from Jupiter must have long slipped past me by now...

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Two teddies are now

Both in my keeping,

Gifts to toddler grandchildren, us.

When new, Bruin was purple, larger,

With a deep growl.

My brother's.

Teddy was smaller, fawn,

Mine.

He lost his growl after an unfortunate fall

And a sink bath.

I loved Teddy with a depth which included emotional guilt.

I was jealous because Bruin was bigger and purple

And my own ted must never know of that.

I was the oldest but the girl.

Perhaps that played into who got which bear.

Bruin is no longer purple,

Faded after decades on my brother's windowsills,

At home and in his flat.

For a few years now, both have looked down from

The high shelf beside my daughter's childhood raised bed.

They leaned together, slightly forward,

As if wanting to come down.

I climbed up to get them the other day and soon saw why.

Both lambswool, moths have pecked their back legs into small

bald patches.

It's been a poignant time as my mother has lately died too.

I felt I had let them down, the two teds,

Neglected while cherished still.

I've dusted them off and put them on the coverlet

Of the single bed below,

Where they seem more contented, two old men together.

Better now, their worn little faces seem to say.