THE TRIGGER
She was my Auntie Mabs
And she died young.
If she were capable of thought
She would consider herself forgotten.
Not so.
For here, in Australia,
Decades after her death,
Her niece,
Now old herself,
Remembers her.
Often.
Tall, rangy, Celtic-looking,
Funny, kind and ascerbic.
I think of her every time I see a certain flower.
Just because, back in the mists of time,
Casually,
She said
'I wish I could live somewhere where bougainvillia grows'.
And now I do.
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RED FOR REMINISCENCE.
Rebecca went to Europe when she was twenty-one.
She met a lot of people and she had a lot of fun.
She returned with a loaded suitcase with presents for us all.
She is that sort of person......presents, wall-to-wall!
I must have received a dozen, from everywhere she'd been.
If you look at my kitchen photo one of them can be seen.
A little tea-towel from Austria, with a recipe displayed,
A recipe for Strudel, telling how it should be made.
My kitchen, at that time, was green, then various different hues;
But red was never suitable so red I didn't choose.
But, a while ago, my kitchen changed, becoming a sparkling white,
So after twenty hidden years my tea-towel's in full sight.
And I've bought more reds to match it! There's much mirth from my son,
Who counted all the reds in view and said they were overdone!
But I've an added reason, for 'painting the town red'.
If you could see, there's a red plate on the wall behind my head.
It was made for me by my mother a year before she died.
She was well into her nineties, so I view the plate with pride.
A little touch of scarlet and my kitchen has become
A thankyou to my daughter and a little touch of 'Mum'.
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