a winter's day from 2009

A Winter’s Day

By michaelgcasey  (that's me)

                     

As I look from my window I see the blue blue sky. Birds dive and soar better than any circus acrobat, they are painting a picture with their wings. Tiny tiny wisps of white cloud remain, like left over candy floss on a child's face, like white whiskers on a very old woman’s face.

Curtains are pulled open and windows are  inched open too, daylight and fresh air to bedrooms shuttered down against a cold winters night. People stand  and yarn and scratch too as they struggle to wake up fully. Then one or two realise they don’t wear any pyjamas so they hurry away from their windows, their wives, their husbands, their lovers laughing at their stupidity. At least old Mrs Jones may have had a thrill.

The sounds of morning, of daylight rise. Slowly the sound of the milk float, the sounds of milk bottles clinking together as the milkman does his rounds, this way and that. The sound of of Mrs Murphy walking her dog, the dog panting in the cold winters air. He doesn’t have a sheepskin coat to keep him warm. He has his own fur coat but this winter is a cold one, so Goldie the dog could do with an extra coat too.

People dance down their door steps to  their car, nagging children to hurry up as its cold. Children write their name in the frost on their neighbours’ cars before being told off. John the neigborhood jogger rushes past, the kids stick their tongue out at him, he does the same, they all laugh, only for John to miss his stride slip on an icy patch and fall to the ground hurting his elbow as he does so. Still laughing the kids get in the car and are taken off to see grandpa, John is rubbing his elbow and his bum as he gets up gingerly.

The lads, we are so hard, appear from their homes to noisily attack the day, Sunday is for shouting, but not too loud, as they have headaches and hangovers, did they really chat up that ugly fat girl, but they gave her his brother’s mobile number and not his own. They stride off to the news agent for The News Of The World, just for the sports pages, their mum's can read the scandal section and the horoscopes.

One or two black people wearing their Sunday best pass by on their way to church, a throwback to decades before when people still went to church and when people still wore their Sunday best. People used to dress up to go to the theatre too, but now, but now.

I reach for the kettle and have my first coffee of the day, coffee with milk and no sugar, the way English people have coffee, not the American way, just the soft English way. My kids want toast and peanut butter, or cheese on toast, so my 3 slices of toast become one slice of toast as I feed my girls. I nag them to put slippers and socks on, yes we have nice carpet but in the winter’s weather they are always getting colds, so I nag them, I nag them. My wife nags them in Chinese too, or Shanghai dialect. The phone rings, its Germany calling, or rather my wife’s best friend who’s calling from  Germany, the cackle or hens, of chickens clucking is the noise these 2 Shanghai girls make, as they talk in Shanghai, when are we coming back to Germany is the message. Cluck cluck cluck.

The sky has changed the blue has changed to grey, will the snow return, its been a snowy winter over here in Birmingham, some parts of the country have had the worse weather in 20years. The children have quietened down, my wife has relented and put a nature program on the tv for them. As for me I was going to try and write a poem but instead you see what’s before you. I’m half listening to Mike and The Mechanics a cd I’ve loaded to the computer, “give me the simple life” he sings, I suppose my life is a simple life too. But if we can see  the poetry in life then we enjoy the simple things which make up all are lives. All our lives are  poetry if only we take the time to watch and listen, while we’re making toast for the kids

p.s. This piece was from last Winter.

 the slim look post quadruple heart bypass in 2015