Fumes

Felt empty today. Neither Mum nor not-Mum. Stuck in low gear. Chugging up an interminable incline.

I learnt that a funeral is not an event but a process that becomes a culmination. But that the process is maybe as important as the climax. To share jokes about the songs she liked; the bloody carol singers at the door and us cowering in the outhouse; Land of My Fathers and the Cor Mebion Prysor and a song to Hedd Wyn, the tragic IWW Eisteddfod bard from Trawsfynydd; the boxes of photos; the endless possibilities to remember and remain.

Really tough and alienating to not be there but a Zoom hour with the sister and brothers saved the day from the bleak figures and jobbery I was embarked on.

It was hot and the cherries threw out their blossom like pants at a Thin Lizzy gig. An extra 10kgs of Kennebek planted yest in virgin ground with olive fertiliser and the compost heap. Borlotti s tomorrow and more seed trays. The first swallowtail of the year. Fresh milk in coffee after weeks without.

God bless the poor, the weak, the vulnerable. And rain down bolts of fire and fury on the leaders who betrayed their people.

And thank you. Thank you to so many.

While we sit here in our gilded cage crying over deaths so far away.