Lament to Home
Oh england lost
my treasured friend,
please tell me.
Does your beck still run cold
over pebbles?
Do cricket whites still dot flat lime
and can you hear the clapping?
Oh my england lost
my deep embedded land
please remind me.
Do your blue bottles bump
into windows as distant sheep cough?
Do your horses swish
their tails in the shade
as tractors turn stripes for winter,
can you still smell the hay?
Oh my england lost
I am sorry
please forgive me.
I will swap all the flowers of Barcelona for
one walk through cows parsley.
I will give you the beach for the terrifying dash
over meadows with Molly, fearful of young boys
with wet mouths and big eyes.
Oh my england lost
I am sorry
please wait for me.
I’ll not again run for different grass
but wait for your spring (for however long)
and your loving summer (for however short)
I’ll not again swap dry for damp or cold wind for hot breeze
or yellow bubbles for flat brown beer.
I am yours.
My england
My oldest friend
Forget me not.
Yes I get homesick but believe it or not I am really happy here as well! I have been painting these past days and it gets me over emotional! I was painting a picture of an imagined tree, weirdly, inspired by sitting in Miro park looking at his sculpture. The lime green in the painting made me think that I am missing the countryside, we live near a nice park Parc Del Guinardo, up on the hill looking over the whole of barcelona and the sea, its amazing. I miss the countryside at home as well but its so close I can nip out to the foundry and walk molly in the cotswolds on the way.
Painting seems to weird me out more than sculpture, I think its the colours, they made me think of aldeborough where I grew up and hanging about in the village, on the green, the cricket pitch was at the other end of this massive green and I never watched them but they were always there in the distance.
Often I played in the beck, feet cold from the running water, hours spent lifting up pebbles and cupping hands in wait for tiny fish that would get scooped up into plastic tubs from the doctors surgery. They would get hot and confused all day on the bank and then we would pour them back in again. it made me think of norfolk and gannny and grandpas house, they had sheep and horses and it was always really quite and blue bottles would fly about bumping into the window to get out, when it was open just below and they could have gone out and annoyed the horses, usualy though they got squashed with a crunchy noise by granny.
And the green painting reminded me of walks in the south west with my darling Graham and Molly and general escapades of trying to not get chased by cows, lifting molly over fences, walking for hours, all so we could enjoy a brown flat beer in a garden on the way…..happy days!!
No doubt when I am back in the green grass of home I will talk of my love of Barcelona! C’est la vie!
à bientôt
err….Castilian Carol…wrong country!
Just got back from walking the dog and feel quite at home here really, good to let off steam