Unexpected

Unexpected

 Maud opened the front door.

Billy was mowing the lawn.

 

She carefully lifted her rollaton

walker over the step. Behind her

 

Radio 4. News at One. Headlines over.

In her tracksuit pocket:- her purse

 

credit card, out-of-date driving licence.

She paused to smell the grass, waved

 

and smiled at Billy. She pushed on

regardless of sounding horns. Head

 

down to the police station. ‘Lost property?’

She shuffled; her legs tired.

 

‘Name, address.’  Not looking

he shoved papers through the grille.

 

‘No time for forms, I’m 86.’ Outside

she followed her nose – trees, meadows

 

cows, the perfume of clouds – felt again

the stir and tingle, the reds, the yellows

 

trumpets and mandolins. Maud, Oh

mighty battle maid, revived, staggered

 

slow, ruts and mushrooms blocking

her way. She gripped; pain was nothing

 

to her now. The bench on the Westwood

was old and damp as she sank triumphant.

 

No need to close her eyes here. No need

to wish her life were other. Bluebirds

 

flew round like motes. They sang, or were

silent – just as they chose. They perched

 

on her walker, her arthritic hands – just

as they chose.

Unexpected was written during the summer of 2021 on one of Wendy Pratt’s online poetry courses. Maud was my mother and she died in 2011 of old age. She had had dementia for 14 years. As part of Cannon Poets I wrote several poems about my experience of that, including one, Question, in which I tried to imagine myself as my mother going into a care home for people with dementia. Those 14 years were difficult for our family and it’s taken time to remember mum before the condition changed her in many respects. Unexpected is the happy ending I wished for her.

The photo is credited to Peter Church/Beverley Westwood, common land/cc BY-SA 2.0