Ophelia's Nun

Judith Neave ran her right index finger, panning left to right, along the third shelf of blue and grey cloth bound books in the case set in the alcove of the living room. White clouded afternoon light, from the back garden behind her shoulder, streamed through the closed French windows upon her forearm and hand as she played the tops of the books like piano keys. Each book reverberated a different memory. The old secondhand Oxford edition of Wordsworth, blue cloth with browning gilt, brought to mind Jeffrey standing clad only in a towel after a bath, on the landing at the first house they bought in Duke Street, reading aloud Maud in a mock parson's drone as she heard her laugh rebound around the bathroom tiles, she happy to take his water for her own wash. They'd been young students together, married, and had got that house when Jeff had accepted his first teaching post at the new Comprehensive. Ha! Yes, she used to scour the market in town for poetry books for him, she never forgot him. Stacks and stacks, he really did read them all, he devoured them. That was long before they could afford to move here. And then there was that time when she was on maternity leave from the University after Jill was born. She'd take the baby into town and buy old collections of Donne or early English translations of Zola, and surprise him with them when he returned from work in the evening. There they were on the shelves, those memories. And look: That original Faber of Eliot, with Prufrock, which he quoted to her by heart that first holiday together, their honeymoon out by the bright dunes at Southwold, snuggled on a red tartan blanket with rather warm Chardonnay, with the cloud perpetually threatening rain and wind blowing her straw hat down to the sea. Oh, that was a touch of realism in the moment of romance! How did it happen, now? Oh yes! There he was in his cream linen shirt and trousers, all sandy, his eyes closed, whispering, she in her pink dress, her breast sighing. all the time watching his lips, "Do I dare?" Then the wind caught that hat she'd left beside her and it blew it up over their heads right up in the air, spinning it round and down to the sea, with the tide coming in for teatime, showering sprays of foam on the glistening sand ...

Peter and Margaret were the last of the guests to go home. They'd said to Judith if she needed anything, just to call. Jill had been but had now gone to her boyfriend's: She'd said she couldn't take it being here, surrounded by memories, so soon afterwards. Judith was still in the black outfit. It wasn't right to change so soon, was it? The fabric itched a little. She touched an unfamiliar edition of Proust with her fingertips. Then she felt a warm light upon the side of her face. She blinked, turned, and opened the French windows, to let the afternoon sounds of a busy high street resound over her garden wall, through her garden and into the still living room. Flies poured in on the speared cocktail sausages and limp ham sandwiches from the wake, before now untouched on their plates on the table. Judith turned her eyes once again to the strange copy of Proust, "The Remembrance of Things Past", plucked the volume from the shelf and opened it in her palm, the soft dust jacket sensuous against her flesh. Then she saw her husband's name etched in someone else's extravagant hand, a Loop on the J, a flourish on the Y. And just as the sun blinded, she read the dedication.

I shall enjoy that pint, olderman. Thank you Sir. Have one on me in return, my friend.

Originally posted by olderman
i walked upon the eastern shore with sand
hot between my toes as the salt filled air
filled my senses, consumed me with her hand
her touch was soft like dream whipped cream tis fair
she sang of love and weather in love's grasp
neither hides amongst rocks along the reef
nor washes to shore in clumps of sea grass
yet must be found for these are my belief -

while love's box is replete - songs of merry days,
the beach is a good walk for remembrance
of love in the past, so much is sweet lust
bring on the surf and the sharp sting of rays
from the jelly fish, whose transluscence
invades my senses, yet, for now, i trust

Thank you!

It's such a lovely poem, anOmis. Thank you.

I shall obey.