Burning the Vardo

This also is by my artist friend, Glenda Gerrard, the poem sewn into the fabric.

My circle of writerly friends all have areas of life from which they draw their inspiration. Nature serves to inspire Tom and Andy in quite different ways. Andy for the sheer love of the landscape and its moods, Tom for the life lessons he reads into everything growing, ebbing and flowing, decaying and regenerating. Eileen writes of love and loss, making something eternal and transcendent out of each small moment. Glynis writes gripping stories. She often sets them in historic or prehistoric times and relishes the research involved. I wasn’t sure I had a specific source until I looked at the growing collection of verse I’ve written over the last three years. It seems I’m moved by people and their innumerable quirks, also by food and the homely objects around me. Then there are several poems that come from random images I pick up in my reading. For instance a year ago I read a novel in which a gypsy featured and with her the Romany custom of burning the vardo after its inhabitant dies. It’s unlikely that this custom has survived as caravans are increasingly expensive. It’s even more unlikely that the dead ancestor was ever burned along with their home, as far as I can tell, but still the idea of going up in flames along with the possessions that have meant so much in life, stayed with me. 

Burning the Vardo

Sparks fizzle in her hair.

Blue-and-white ware 

crackle and split.

A treasured silver teapot melts like wax.

The old hat flies on thermals to a branch,

defiant, till the last dark crimson flare, 

destroys its memory of her proud head.

Eyes filled with smoke and tears

bubble and burst.

In the white hot centre

she hangs, skeletal.