Creative Writing: Carers UK Zoom

My homework was set by Susan Hallissey and Fiona Taylor from Goldsmith's University 'Open Book' project; read an article called 'Heart, Ego or Magic' by Joana Varandes and write a poem inspired by it. My first draft came out fully formed about a trip I made with my daughter to Pwll-y-wrach and Myddfai, Wales. My poem is called it 'Serendipity'. Hope you enjoy it!

SERENDIPITY

Planning and funding, emotional pep talks,

check lists and packing, all bases must be covered.

Getting a break, respite from family sounds formal

but I need to escape from my caring demands.

I want to be 'Mother', away with her daughter,

accessible places, mental fatigue, physical pain all factored in.

By random chance (Hay-on-Wye being full), a Gurkha B&B

is home for my amputee daughter and me.

We drive, in the Motability vehicle, so grudgingly given,

(which nearly defeated me time and again).

But the sympathetic, isolated landscape beckons-

ancient hedgerows jostle with Tourist Attractions.

We park in a lay-by in the middle of nowhere,

a Welsh language way-mark points out a path

so we trust our feet and unload the chattels:

picnic, check, art stuff, check, baccy, check.

When fatigue calls a halt we find a deep hollow

the waterfalls' weight carved deep in the basin.

Unworldly, unseen by many, drought has revealed this wyrd place.

Drawing, paddling, unearthing clay faces, hours spent in mutual respect.

Days later we ask 'Where did we go?', 'This place has a name?'.

A kindly lady, has maps in hand, a knowing smile crinkles her face

states 'You were at the Witches Pool'

So apt, Serendipity's here!

Seeking Red Kites and in search of a cuppa

we find a black cat sitting next to a sign

written on cardboard and lost in the hedgerow

we follow the arrows trusting to Fate...

Down single track lanes, wild flowers domain

is this a road or have we got lost?

Ah, a village called Myddfai, with funky new centre-

lunches and teas at subsidised cost.

Little aware that the Healers of Myddfai,

well known and respected

once dwelt in this place.

We avoid a rogue sheep and find loose change in the car.

'Plants For Sale' from keen gardeners,

a piece of this village we can buy and transplant

to our humdrum city life,

tangible memories to nurture at home.

A cancer Consultant takes our money

(in a voluntary capacity he now fills his time),

an outsider no doubt, it takes one to know one.

Talk of cuttings, cell reproduction and ungainly growths.

We look at each other, my daughter and I

someone who knows more than we do,

of the condition that blighted our lives?!

An Indian doctor, who knows of Nf, at molecular level, here in Myddfai?

We were open to the winds, worldly and other

the straight and narrow never applied.

I'm a frazzle haired crone with my outsider daughter

And, you've guessed it-we have come home!

Serendipity is here 'gainst all expectation, though hidden, she follows us round.

Open your eyes to the magic of people, open your hearts to the magical muse

of gaiya and places, unseen stories held in the air.

Without her, this life

is just

impossible to bear.