Friday, June 29, 2012

Empathy


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EMPATHY
(An Acrostic)

Emotions flow so deep
Making me want to weep,
Placing me in your shoes,
As you win or lose.
The pain you seem to bear,
How much it makes me care!
Your life is enmeshed with mine,
But a glance is the only sign.
*
------------------------------------------------------------------------

LOOK HARD

I'm sure I'm in there, somewhere.
If I could weave my way between the bodies
I would find myself,
A skinny little girl
Playing with her cousins.
An English summer,
Brief and unreliable.
But, for us, long.
Because my family hired a tent from
May to September every year.
(All that 'hiring' meant
Was chalking one's name on the wall
Where the tent would go.)
We 'lived' on the sands.......
We never used the word 'beach'
In the nineteen thirties.
We would leave school at lunch time
To go down on the sands,
Where the mothers and aunties had prepared lunch.
Sandwiches on a little wooden table.
The mothers and aunties
Set aside their knitting.
They had been knitting our winter socks.
Sometimes the tide was high and we ate
With the water lapping round our feet.
That was oddly exciting.
At the weekends
We spent longer on the sands.
There were donkey-rides,
Maybe an ice-cream,
Maybe the excitement of being 'snapped'
By a beach photographer.
A swim was a test of endurance.
We would run into the water, squealing,
Then fling ourselves
Into bone-chilling iciness.
Once we were numb we could enjoy it.
Then there was the shivering as we dressed.
It was heaven.
There were always thousands of other people
Doing the same things.
Sometimes it was actually hot
And I would lie on a towel,
Letting the sun pierce my closed eyelids.
It was heaven.
I thought it would go on for ever.
But it was England.
It was 1939.
I know I'm in there.......
Somewhere.
*

3 comments:

Kellie Elmore said...

YAY!!!!! My very first FWF acrostic! =) LOVE IT! I was soooo happy to see you back! It's been too long! Where have you been??? Thank you for writing for me again! xoxoxox

Anonymous said...

I loved your first poem - it encapsulates perfectly what empathy is

Marbles in My Pocket said...

A wonderful acrostic on the prompt. Very nice!