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Friday 19 September 2014

CHILD PRODIGY



A village school in rural Yorkshire:
a classroom in September 1961.
Chalk dust on the wooden floor beneath a blackboard.
Copper-gold sycamore leaves
falling past high - set window panes like giant
discoloured snowflakes...and the sounds
of morning assembly echoing around the empty room:
young voices singing hymns and chanting prayers.

A bell rings.
In silence, the children file in behind their teacher.
Then boring constants. All those
questions to be answered, that try as she might,
Jane simply cannot grasp:
the word for door in French;
the formula for sodium chloride in chemistry;
the date of the Roman invasion of Britain in history...
oh such bland dullness!

Bored eyes wandering
to that high window and the wind-tossed
leaves beyond. A young heart dearly wishing
to catch one as it passes, like a bus,
and ride away to freedom.
All those questions she really wants the answers to:
Who am I?
How did I get here?
Why am I here?
Why do I feel so different?
What is love - what does it look like?
The mental image of something warm and golden,
glowing brightly, protective and indestructible
that links everything in perfect harmony rises up
before her inner eye.
But no one knows for sure.
The only certainty is the smell of new paint
and milk warming on the radiators;
the deafening voices of other children, overexcited
at the prospect of another day's lessons...
so why does she feel as if she is serving
a never-ending prison sentence?


Peculiarities of home: Alsatian hairs everywhere,
and biscuit crumbs trapped between carpet edge
and skirting board that must have been
lucky escapees from mother's vacuum cleaner.
The smells of beef stew cooking and warm
leather sofa and chairs.
After dinner, family still at the table, sharing anecdotes:
attempted bullying at 'big' school - but her brother's
confident, firm resistance winning the day:
a valuable lesson for her, no doubt.
Superficial,
all this chit chat - who really cares?
Yet this is their family story.
Doesn't it bind them together?
Perhaps this togetherness is an aspect of love.
So, how come there is still such a powerful sense of isolation
deep inside her?


Her bedroom: her sanctuary.
Pebbles and delicate bird skulls
collected from Balnakiel beach,
all carefully wrapped in tissue paper
and kept in a cardboard shoe box.
A photograph of the grandparents she never knew,
smiling for the lens (anticipating
the arrival of their future granddaughter perhaps?).
They are trapped forever in their time
of austerity, of the Great War...whereas
she lives now, when the massive guns are silent
and each evening the quiet village fades:
church steeple and grey slate roofs slipping
gently into the deepening shadows of nightfall, oaks
and weeping willows merging into dusk.
Hours spent just gazing from bedroom window,
watching this fascinating transformation.

By morning there is a different world outside,
the colours much richer now in the low-lying morning sun.
Dew rises from garden fences like smoke
in this beautiful golden landscape, and the hedges
are adorned with water-diamonds and rainbow birds.
A sudden realisation that she has lived forever:
there was nothing before her...
so why, oh why does she have to go to school?


That miserable daily hike to school: a
procession of laughing children.
Painfully shy and introverted, she does not fit in.
The drone of a car engine passing by.
Awareness narrows to a single point
that follows the sound, and her body is desperate to follow.
A footpath beside the parish church:
small feet running for freedom,
crossing the bridge over the stream,
now traversing the wooded hollow of Beck's Hole -
such a delightful place, like heaven
in comparison to the confinement of school.

Soon, the station comes into view.
Sitting on the hill, she watches the trains below
billowing steam into the open windows
of the platform cafe.
Life appears so laid back down there.
Oh to be an adult and have the choice
of how to spend her days!
There is such peace and tranquillity here -
a stark difference to the world she daily inhabits.
Clouds seem to kiss the earth, like Gods, in a pure love
no longer just golden, but now also white, green and brown
with flashes of azure blue.
Oh the bliss of discovering that love and life
are a multi-coloured interconnectedness - so beautiful
like this.


And it keeps getting bigger, this feeling inside her,
with the realisation that everything
as far as the eye can see and beyond, is her -
just as she is it.
She had always believed herself lost,
but now Truth has finally found her.
A knowing way beyond the scope
of those dusty dry books lies here
beneath her in this leaf mould.
She instinctively plunges a hand
deep into it's damp earthiness...
again...and again...
and she keeps coming up with silvery threads
of a slime that dissolves back into Nature's cycle
as soon as it is exposed to the air.
It appears to be composed of the
same material as the faint tracery of pale blue
she can see on the inside of her wrists.
A sudden impulse prompts her to dig deeper and deeper.
Then she stops to closely examine the rich brown mass.
The entire Universe is there in that one small handful...
and she is in there somewhere too...
or perhaps a higher version of herself, one who is connected
to all those who have lived before
and all those who have yet to be born.
She is a single molecule of pure Spirit
who came here to breathe Love and Light
into the darkness of matter
through these delicate fern-like fronds
of the Creator's DNA.


Jane has no more questions now...
only infinite answers.





21 comments:

  1. Magnificent..anything I'd add would take away from this Masterpiece. Ygraine you are incredibly gifted, have a lovely day!

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    1. Oh Lorraine...I don't know what to say...only Thank You...so heart-felt...you are so kind!

      Have a fabulous weekend:)

      Big Hugs xxx

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  2. Dearest, Ygraine...if I had your talent and I could create such beauty with words, I would write volumes~

    Big Hugs
    xoxoxo

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    1. My heart-felt thanks, dear Jan...I really mean that.
      Methinks your talent well outshines mine though...those gorgeous paintings and poems totally mesmerize me...:)

      Big hugs xxx

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  3. This is so wonderful. The vision, intelligence, and pure understanding of life questions and answers, and discovery is so well portrayed.
    Love it. One of your best..

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    1. Do you really think so?
      Oh thank you so much, Anthony...you will never know how much that means to me...:)

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  4. 5 comments? you should get 150..the most gifted are often the most ignored how can that be?
    then there's Jan
    and Anthony, so extremely talented and so few visitors.....
    I just take picture i like I shoot whether I have 2 or 5 comments doesn't matter and I'm not putting myself down I'm a good photographer there are millions of good photographers, but not millions of you Ygraine and you Jan and of course for sheer talent , you Anthony, I'll never understand....

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    1. Oh Sweetie...if I received no comments at all it would make no difference. I just so love to write!
      I am always surprised when people do comment, though. Most people are really busy...so I feel incredibly honoured when they take the time to share their thoughts on my work...and I am so grateful.

      You are absolutely right...there ARE a lot of incredibly talented people out there. But it had never before occurred to me that I could be one of them!
      So thank you, Sweetie. You are so kind.
      And yes, you are indeed a good photographer - I would have been more inclined to describe you as "a unique, one-off photographer"...such is your unlimited talent...:)

      Big Hugs xxx

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  5. What beautiful prose you have composed Ygraine!
    I was truly mesmerized from the beginning to the very end!
    I felt Jane's restlessness and the cool damp earth, I even
    smelled it:)
    Fabulous write dear Lady, I loved it!!
    (Hope this comment goes through the first one didn't seem to publish, sigh :)

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    1. Oh thank you, Rose...from my heart. I am so pleased you liked this!
      I must say how glad I am that you're writing again...I have so missed you...

      Ha...Blogger has been playing with me too...my comments keep disappearing, then posting twice :/

      Hope you are having a fabulous weekend xxx

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    1. Thank you, Giancarlo.

      Hope you are having a great weekend too :)

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  7. In terms of being expressive and lively, there is no word to comment. I am jealous of the way you give life to your words. Sometimes, I don't comment because there is no word that can suffice.

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    1. Dumcho...I had never thought of my humble words in that way...you do me such honour...I feel something of a fraud!
      You see, I just write what I feel and see, in the way I see it.
      There is a lot of me in this piece, of who I am and how I view the world...and I absolutely hated school, because I just never fitted in...so I grew up rather isolated.
      I am only greatly relieved that I haven't bored everyone!

      Thank you so much...:)

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  8. I feel as if a comment from me would make those beuaitful lines come tumbling down. But comment I must because what you have produced here is not just a poem but an ode to those unsung heroes and heroines in our schools up and down the country who get on with their schoolwork but who feel alienated. You have drawn such an accurate picture of your jane that I'm tempted to print your poem off and send it off to our new education secretary..

    I am touched now. Thanks.

    Greetings from London.

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    1. Oh CiL...your comment has brought tears to my eyes...I had no idea there were so many who feel as I do. This is monumental...I have felt isolated all my life, yet had no reason to feel that way!

      Thank you...so, so much for opening my eyes...and yes...please do feel free to print it...;)


      Hope your Sunday is good :)

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  9. Sorry, I meant "beautiful" and "Jane" (capital "J"). :-)

    Greetings from London.

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    1. *Smiles*...I am so relieved it isn't only we, the less educated, who can make mistakes!! ;)

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  10. what a beautiful journey she is on eh? and what a realization to be holding so much right there in the palm of her hand...a bit of enlightenment eh? smiles.

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    1. So happy you're back, Brian...do hope you are feeling less stressed.
      Life does have this way of 'ganging up' on us sometimes, doesn't it?:/

      Yes...if only those type of realizations could be more than just once in a lifetime eh?
      Would definitely make for a much happier World...
      Many thanks :)

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Thank you so much for taking the time to read and comment on my posts.
I really appreciate hearing your opinions...:)