Genetic Sandwich

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'Numbers'

GENETIC SANDWICH

I'm not a Number Cruncher; numbers don't appeal.

Though some are Number Munchers and enjoy them for a meal!

It's strains my little grey cells just to count above a ten!

And when I do I sigh and say' I won't go there again!'

Which is odd, because my mother loved numbers all her life;

She'd have much preferred accounting to being a stay-home wife.
Never 'allowed' to go out to work, she was tied to the kitchen sink,
Which was a waste of an agile brain that was crying-out to think!
For 'one brief shining moment' during the Second World War
 She told me she was happier than she'd ever been before;
She worked at an aircraft factory, doing accounts, of course,
As men were in the army or some other fighting force.
As soon as the War was over she was popped back in her box!
Women were made for bed and board and, maybe, pretty frocks.
But, unbeknown to her, her genes were lurking out of sight
Inside me, her daughter, so that made things all right.
I couldn't add or multiply; well, maybe just a bit,
But at algebra and geometry I certainly was no hit.

But, years later, I had a daughter; Rebecca is her name.
Just like my mother she finds crunching numbers just a game.
'It's lovely when it all works out!' she once said to me!
And, of course, she does accounting,  so it's turned out beautifully.
*
 I'm the meat in the sandwich! Numbers are for the birds!
Give me a non-stop diet of words, words, words!
*

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LETTERS

Faded ink and faded paper,
Faded words and faded dreams.
Long-forgotten wishful thinking,
Long-departed idle schemes.
Tied with ribbon they lie waiting
Letters from the days gone by.
Will their youthful words embarrass?
Will their passions make us cry?
*
Soon old letters will be relics.
Telegrams? Now what were they?
They would now be classed as 'clutter'
By the writers of today.
If you send your love an email
It will vanish in thin air!
When you're old will you remember
So-and-so who used to care?
If you send your love a message
On your mobile, clicked in text,
Very soon they will erase it,
Making room for what comes next.
But a faded, dusty letter,
Touched a-while with tenderness,
Smelling of the days departed,
Bringing back some past caress,
Can't be clicked into oblivion;
It lives on and on it seems.
Faded ink and faded paper,
Faded words and faded dreams.
*