Linguistic Kaleidoscope

Recession:
The wave of progress falters.
Relentless pounding on the shore
Recedes as the tide turns.


A downturn:
An inverted smile.
The disappointing of our expectations
While the economy wanes.


Affordability:
Euphemism for no choice -
What we persuade ourselves
Can be afforded – or must.


Economic viability:
How many lives can we save?
How many kidneys, hearts, livers
Can we afford to repair or replace?


Sustainability:
How many wells can be dug,
Mouths fed, babies born
In this modern day economy?


Adjusted:
Wages down, prices up,
The interest on our savings plans…
Rarely in our favour.


Human resources:
Cogs in a machine;
A subtraction from the jobless total.
Is that all?


A challenge:
Another hardship faced
That must be endured stoically,
With a smile.


Kaleidoscope:
Our changing meanings,
Rearranging patterns,

Spinning round and round.

The poem is short but this story is a long one, it seems. We began so long ago, even before Northern Rock and the newly-coined phrase: the Credit Crunch. It seems a long time ago now and we thought we were reading a short story. Now it is becoming an epic novel and still the saga continues. It is still current news. The media love it. Even the government of the Netherlands has been dissolved due to the inability to agree on a plan of austerity measures. Nothing has changed, except that we have become used to it. It is still about dwindling pensions, increasing taxes, spending cuts and unemployment. Gradually it is changing our outlook on life and our language reflects it. It gives out the subtle message that life is simply about money - about lots of it or about having less: too much or too little. Is that all? I hope not. It is a sad story, that's true, but we are made of stronger stuff and we will get through this and find another tale to tell with a happier ending. At least, I am trusting so.

Night Train to Lisbon

I am reading a fascinating book.* A respected college lecturer, expert in ancient languages, fluent in many tongues, reliable, trusted professional colleague of many years' standing is in crisis. One day he walks out of his old life, leaves his briefcase full of books on the table of the lecture room and disappears. At that moment he exchanges certainties for uncertainties, security for adventure, respect and adulation for humble anonymity. Why?

A fleeting encounter with a Portuguese woman on a bridge in Bern, a chance introduction to a book of wisdom in a language he now needs to learn open up new possibilities. In the space of a few life-changing hours he is thrust into a new culture, a new language and a new mindset and finds himself on a bewildering quest for those parts of his being that have never been realised. What might I have been if I had not followed this particular path in my youth? What could I have become if I had turned another way? Who would I have been if I could have seen my reflection in the eyes of a different set of peopl? Where did all those other abandoned parts of me go? The night train to Lisbon provides a time and a space for him to consider these questions.

Identity, such a fragile thing: such a precarious concept. Mundus imagines himself as others see him. Do they see what he sees? His students, his fellow academics... how do they see him? His wife, what does she see? "Am I boring?" he asks her. The Portuguese author he is now pursuing through the streets of Lisbon, because he is entranced by the wisdom of his book, describes a disturbing experience in his own life. Peering through the window of a department store, he finds his vision obstructed by his own reflection in the glass. As he gazes into the window at this representation of himself another man stands behind him, lighting up a cigarette and staring at the reflection of the man in front of him. The author is paralysed by the sudden thought 'what does he see?' How can he understand the disparity between the outer and the inner self. Who am I? Am I what I see or what others see? How reliable is what a man sees? Does he see reality or does he see a modified image, a reflection of his own self, his limited knowledge, his prejudices, his desires and dislikes in the object of his gaze? Does what he sees tell us something of the nature of the one whom he sees or only truths about the beholder? Reflections of reflections... concepts of being...

Life is not so fixed as it seems, perhaps, nor identity so sure. Maybe it does us all good sometimes to take the night train to Lisbon and re-examine our own possibilities.Perhaps we can recapture something that has been lost, take a new turn, experience something fresh and new. Who knows what we could become.

*  Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier

Freight Train From Watchet

Watchet is no fools’ paradise,
No easy suntrap for idle tourists –
Bristles with history and hardship,
Commerce and men’s toil.

White waves pound on Watchet’s shore;
Boats bob in the harbour.
Fishermen on Watchet’s wall
Are waiting for a catch,
Watching and waiting…
Harbour walls glisten, green and damp;
Masts jingle in the breeze,
Gusts of wind whip up the sea –
Day trippers take care!

Watchet is no fools’ paradise,
No easy suntrap for idle tourists –
Bristles with history and hardship,
Commerce and men’s toil.

Ida Lucy in a long black skirt
Waits on the busy quay,
Toddler by her side,
My mother in her arms,
Watching and waiting…
Almost a hundred years ago,
Waiting for Albert,
Watching these shores
Till war broke out.

Little museum tells its story
Of iron ore and ships,
Setting out for the open sea
From its plucky little harbour.

Even the steam train, laden
With tourists, pauses for thought
At Watchet’s harbour,
Recalling it’s history,
Watching and waiting…
Here past and present meet
In fading photographs,
Women in long skirts
Shopping in Swain Street.

Watchet is no fools’ paradise,
No easy suntrap for idle tourists –
Bristles with history and hardship,
Commerce and men’s toil.

I've just been back in time, exploring my roots, staying in the Somerset village where my mother grew up and where we spent so many summer holidays on visits to my grandparents. We visited Watchet, that feisty little harbour town where my mother was born, just before the onset of war. They were hard times and Watchet is no chocolate-box, thatched-cottage rural idyll. It has guts. It 'bristles with history and hardship' but it has charm too and I was certainly touched by it. Strange to spend your holiday wondering if your mother walked up this street holding Ida Lucy's hand, if she rode over these moors when she grew up, if she stood and looked at this view from the top of the hill, close to our holiday cottage or stood on the harbour wall, looking out to sea...