My Beloved Cottage, my only home..
Coming on for three years since I had to leave the cottage and still my heart and very soul break with loss and longing. I have lived in seventeen places. I adored the little moorland village of Osmotherley, but the cottage was everything. I was there Seventeen years. Over two thirds of my life. I still hate this place no matter what I do. Every time I hear this poem by Pam Ayres I burst into tears. I couldn't find the words anywhere until a friend found the book it was from. Just £2.06 later thanks to Ebay it was mine.
Pollen on the Wind
See the driveway to our house, now strewn with leaves and softly black,
Today I travel down it and I won't be coming back.
A hand is on my heart that feels so desolate and cold,
My home for half a lifetime. It is over. It is sold.
In this house I cried and thought my heart would surely break,
And felt more joyful happiness than was my share to take,
This home wherein for thirty years we flourished and we shone,
Is all to be dispersed, is to be scattered and be gone.
We were as they are today, were young and confident and brash,
And we ran among the rooms, in the excitement,in the dash,
In the thrill of exploration, and our children sang with joy,
They have come to take our place. This little girl. This little boy.
Shall I tell them? Shall I tell them there are bulbs already peeping?
Shall I ask them to tread lightly where my faithful dogs are sleeping?
Shall I point to little saplings which to mighty trees have grown?
Or slip away in silence; let them make this place their own.
Young men from the furniture removal company,
Will sweep away all traces of my family and me, Agreements are in place which I can never now rescind,
We are blown away like pollen, like the pollen on the wind.
The native birds are singing, as they sing here every day
Who will feed my little birds when I am far away?
The people they are restless, I am realising fast,
Already in this house I am a figure from the past.
I will live in some town distant, I could not go by
this place,
Could not stare down the drive, would have to turn away my face,
I love it as a friend, but now must learn to dwell apart,
From my home. My former home.
My home embedded in my heart.
© Pam Ayres
Heard read by the author on Radio 4 Extra and taken from the book You Made Me Late Again! Published by Ebury Press
Pollen on the Wind
See the driveway to our house, now strewn with leaves and softly black,
Today I travel down it and I won't be coming back.
A hand is on my heart that feels so desolate and cold,
My home for half a lifetime. It is over. It is sold.
In this house I cried and thought my heart would surely break,
And felt more joyful happiness than was my share to take,
This home wherein for thirty years we flourished and we shone,
Is all to be dispersed, is to be scattered and be gone.
We were as they are today, were young and confident and brash,
And we ran among the rooms, in the excitement,in the dash,
In the thrill of exploration, and our children sang with joy,
They have come to take our place. This little girl. This little boy.
Shall I tell them? Shall I tell them there are bulbs already peeping?
Shall I ask them to tread lightly where my faithful dogs are sleeping?
Shall I point to little saplings which to mighty trees have grown?
Or slip away in silence; let them make this place their own.
Young men from the furniture removal company,
Will sweep away all traces of my family and me, Agreements are in place which I can never now rescind,
We are blown away like pollen, like the pollen on the wind.
The native birds are singing, as they sing here every day
Who will feed my little birds when I am far away?
The people they are restless, I am realising fast,
Already in this house I am a figure from the past.
I will live in some town distant, I could not go by
this place,
Could not stare down the drive, would have to turn away my face,
I love it as a friend, but now must learn to dwell apart,
From my home. My former home.
My home embedded in my heart.
© Pam Ayres
Heard read by the author on Radio 4 Extra and taken from the book You Made Me Late Again! Published by Ebury Press