summertime

summertime and we are walking through endless green landscapes, eating poached eggs, sharing unfolding family secrets that hang like dark bubbles, buying second-hand anatomical books, sitting on soggy lime green grass and licking white double cream from brown chocolate butterfly cakes. we are in our homeland our old land, where we were born but not where we live. As I write I have just been given my grandma's silver coffee spoons. I hold their tiny slender perfection, necks fragile and steely like swans. I sit, I write, I wish, I am, anxious and steady as the girls beside me watch Alice sliding through the looking glass, I hear the gentle clink of cutlery from the tidying kitchen  and feel the jabberwocky haunting our soft sofa dreams.

packing

I am packing to leave. I fold tiny clothes and place them in idle black bags. I add forgotten underwear, a present for my aunt. The house feels empty, clean and stationary; time is treading water. I tick last items from lists scrawled in red, green and blue, eat hasty meals and prowl like a cat through gradually vacating rooms. Half of the family has already gone; we'll join them in a matter of days. Inside I am unsettled, variable; likely to change. My space feels surprisingly too big; normally I relish my own company, devour the silence and the freedom. Now I am unresolved.

There are days when all the world is tiny closed fisted hard little grey nails, pining bodies down with the herculean force that the Liliputs held Gulliver in place. These sneaking tiny unforgiving things hold spirits tight and will not let you be; placing undue strain upon the soul. Anxiety bleeds into hearts and crushes dreaming butterflies - miniscule moments binding fluttering wings. Other days  all  doors are opening  every house across the Universe; stars are being born into night skies. Precious smiles trace upward curves on mountain tops reflecting eagle's eyes. All the possibilities are possible - then you are safe,  you are free.