Hope Springs Eternal

by Howard Kerr

I shivered
palpably in response to the stimulus of this auspicious winter morning as though I were a nervous acolyte on his first day of probation.
It was that benchmark event called my Birthday.
Like Christmas and Easter they have this annular ring in every sense.
Dates and their import. I was raised to have the healthiest respect for them.
A rendezvous of another kind awaited me later in the day that was seasonal in another sense.
But that just added a certain spring to my step.
Entering my eight decade on earth I dragged that motley crew of bones about me.
Like a hod carrier carting clusters of smokeless polish coal for some imperious client.
But the mind has immense powers waiting to be tapped.
A mineral rich load, a vein of resources with targeted thoughts that were the match for any prescription medicine.
Age is but a number and they can be sung in harmony with one’s universe or jarringly and at odds.
I’m a late in life poet with lines very gingerly crafted at this point in time.
My aunt Virginia who raised me when my mother died started the revolution in my thinking.
“Your mind should be a diary.
Always take note of what’s happening around you and when it happened.
Time, dates, everything.
It always comes in useful.”
She said in that nuanced tonic sol fa accent of hers.
Virginia instilled in me this most functional regard for which I am eternally grateful.
Her words about dates and time echoed continually through the recesses of mind to my ultimate benefit.
I had the required notepad and pen at hand to record anything I could sculpt into a creative ode.
As of yet
a title eluded me but maybe something lustrous, radiant romantic would be apt.
Quite a lot has been composed already much to my surprise.
Virginia’s advice and the embryonic epic planted fertile shoots in my head as I entered the kitchen.
I called it my domain.
Structured in an algebraic fashion with proximity dovetailing elegance it resembled a gallery.
The sink and shrouded tap heads my first port of call.
Stooping over archly I filled a gleaming white plastic jug kettle for that morale boosting first cup of tea.
As I sipped my tea the insights Virginia kindly bequeathed started flooding back.
Those condensed pearls of wisdom regarding time and it’s ambience.
Optimism and cheer were her other passions.
As well as paying attention.
“Focus on your environment. There is joy in abundance.” Virginia opined.
“A treasure trove awaits for those who concentrate.” She said.
“Where there is joy there’s hope.
Time and hope are intertwined.”
Never losing a chance to stress matters time-related.
Typical Virginia logic.
I’m taking it more seriously now as my respect for that statute of limitations called life expectancy approaches.
This lady’s pointers were manfully ingested as my tea stained cup wobbled in my right hand with it's rivulet of veins.
The tea leaves scattered wildly in that microcosm of a drinking vessel had a fleeting fascination for me.
But as I scanned my surroundings with the eye of a keyhole surgeon I couldn't help but notice something else.
The kaleidoscope of colour filling the french panel window in front of the kitchen sink.
Window drabness red carded with the zeal of a strict umpire dismissing an offending player.
My intuition told me to brace myself for events both surprising and anticipated .
This afternoon’s engagement is to the forefront of my mind and for good reason.
Think I’ll leave the cell phone behind.
Or did I hear it go off?
My device was of the more crowded cumbersome type with stubborn square buttons that even the more dexterous hand would find difficult to navigate.
The fingers slipped involuntarily like I sometimes did on those treacherous black ice patches.
“It’ll wait. Can’t really be that important.” I said to myself.
It was one of those phones that emitted this discordant buzz when some arrant nuisance rings at the most inopportune time which is often.
“No … face the morning and it’s canvas of brittle prospect." Speaking with eloquent pride to myself, Hamilton Lake.
Walking outside on this my 78th birthday could be seen as an obstacle course.
I've always had a thing about posture.
The feet must be properly positioned and ready for anything unexpected.
The steps from my house could be awkward and angular with hidden crevices.
Those rugged pockmarks gouged out by the chisel of that tyrant called the elements.
The inherent beauty of garden plants, on the other hand,
purged whatever sluggishness there was in my frame.
Their spectral tint and gravity defying droop gave my eyes an optic fillip.
Green border shrubs and yellow rose petals bore a magic that defied description.
Albeit with telltale winter stains.
But the mindfulness of gait and knowing that slippage could be fatal moderated my enthusiasm about my settings.
Onto the yard and then the slope towards town with a propensity for the occasional wobble notwithstanding.
A downward denouement laced with grit and optimism.
The verges on the fringe of each footpath were covered with tufts of flickering grass cavorting about in a light south east breeze.
Haywire brambles whose overlapping tentacles were embedded in every mound or patch.
Star shaped brown leaves as veiled cover for those sharp spines sticking out.
The bane of every bulging blood vessel.
An ice clad descent that can either capsize or upend even the most determined stride.
Ice that most deceptive gloss that far too easily masks it’s latent perils.
Irrespective I continued unabashed.
The heart, portent of fragility, bruising barometer of one’s twilight moment can be an ally.
A motivator of noble human impulse.
My rainbow tipped walking stick was my elder compass.
A bearing locator for crazy paving pavement slabs.
Those structures fractured by peculiarities of sudden temperature with their plummets and summits!
But focus though impaired was motivated by a stoic forbearance imbued with fire in the soul.
Virginia’s velvet toned voice enjoined on us at home to watch the clouds.
The wispy contours, greyed over forms, wooly frills and outlines drifting overhead.
She also warned of their penchant for unleashing torrents which could spoil the daily strolls of even the most ernest of ramblers.
Today the clouds weaved their way across that azure blue path called the sky.
Curiously enough the self same clouds added to their repertoire by the graceful skirting of rooftops and faraway rock formations on the outskirts of town.
“Clouds are a heavenly canvas. A floating exhibit of the firmament.
They inspire poets, works of art.” Virginia said.
They were doing just that in my case with aplomb.
The planned mysterious link up was never lost sight of amid Virginia’s majestic musings.
“Use your imagination or your imagination will use you. The borders between make belief and the real world must always be maintained.
Imaginings of every kind can be triggered by just about anything familiar.
They can assume a life of their own.”
Wonderful counsel from a wonderful woman.
Virginia, however, unlike some philosophers had a marvelous sense of humor but abhorred the canned, corny variety.
Although such humor couldn't always be avoided I was mindful of her sensitivity on the subject.
Meticulously taking out that pad again I scribbled a few more lines.
It’s beginning to fill up.
The only thing that remains is to have someone to dedicate it to.
The human eye, a person’s best camera turned to the leach like ivy carpet which clung with tenacity to the grey grained stone wall narrowly to my right.
Preserving their corporeal integrity and playing their part while going largely unobserved.
Fir trees, enclosed by pavement railings and gardens had an overwhelming stillness about them.
An unyielding rooted presence.
They too are age defiant when cultivated and getting the right supports.
These trees act as filters for the dust, smoke and fumed manifestations of the modern manufacturer.
Urban heat island effect offset and mitigated.
All these details forensically noted.
A sudden wakening ensued.
“Hi ya, Hamilton. Lovely morning for a stroll.”
My inner space rightly interrupted for a different reality.
“Maybe we’ll meet later at one of your favourite spots or a coffee shop.”
Local teens, Sonia and Winfred with whom I regularly crossed paths and swopped pleasantries of a deeper heartfelt kind.
They alighted from their bicycles.
“It’s your birthday today isn’t it?
You’d put people half your age and mine to shame.” The young lady Sonia said.
Winfred her boyfriend agreed.
“Such generosity I rarely encountered from my own group.” I thought to myself.
Sonia, a vibrant vivacious youth whose tactful airborne words shone as brightly as her arched angelic face.
Winfred, her boyfriend had a slightly bulging chin and matted haired that looked as if it had been constantly drenched.
His was a handsomeness harrowed out by high jinx and crack of dawn capers.
After a friendly departure this couple dashed off with a daring and delight so dirigere of the young.
As well as the young at heart.
One should be cognizant of tread marks of a different kind that await all of us.
But attitude is key. A timeless trait.
More fodder this for that colourful cryptic creation I’m churning about in my brain.
One could not help but notice the dwellings in this compact charming but claustrophobic town.
They were spreadeagled to a fault with scant regard for privacy or personal space.
Neighbours like nodding polders wave from their aluminum polycarbonate verandas.
The sort with integrated guttering and moulded frames.
All packed together like crates in a warehouse.
A carbon copy of some construction company’s catalogue.
The trailing shrubs, wilting flowers in mosaic porcelain propagators, superimposed trellises and overstocked pools to name but a few.
They only served to reinforce their stylish if somewhat stifling similarity.
I was mindful of today’s appointment thanks to my tarnished gold watch and the sonorous chiming of the nearby chapel clock.
Of course one must not overlook Mr and Mrs Ispy as they were nicknamed locally.
The naughty snoops who were minding everybody's business bar their own.
Adam and alma ahern were their names.
Aunt Virginia had some scathing words about their type.
“Some people base their whole world around tittle tattle.
They are grounded in matters that smart folk view with Olympian disdain.”
One can just imagine the cocked ears and protruding noses feasting on every scrap of scandal real or contrived.
Theirs was an in-built antennae always aligned for mischief of the murkiest kind.
They had an ubiquitous presence.
You never knew what hedge or door they might pop out of.
They sniffer dogged their way around every trail, route, and byway in pursuit of some scurrilous rumour.
Encylopaedic were they on shenanigans of all kinds.
A satellite dish for backstabbing and intrigue.
Some were even so unkind as to suggest that they spied on each other.
They knew everybody and wormed their way into everyone’s confidence when they could!
Gossips at the cutting edge of trivia.
“Oops ….oh no! I’m about to crash.”
I said with my voice trembling.
Lost concentration for a minute.
My notepad and pen skating on a footpath that resembled a small scale ice rink.
Aunt virginia's word’s about focus were never more valid.
“There goes my poem on ...a mudpatch.”
Despite this sudden intrusion I kept my balance but maybe lost something valuable.
A tumult of events on the ground and overhead took place.
Shrill birds chirping and circulating in the sky, swooning and swooping like a scene from an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
As I slowly regained my balance I walked wearily and warily towards the diary with said verse.
The lines were smeared with mud.
Uncannily like a lady’s mudpack.
The heartfelt lines were still legible.
Well, just about.
My heart was beating for various reasons now.
I had a 4 pm deadline to meet with forty or so minutes to spare.
Yet there were so many distractions.
An embarrassment of diversion sometimes towered above that stultifying uniformity which threatens even the most imaginative town architecture.
Or was my mind playing tricks on me with all the soundscapes and stimulation of the senses?
The downside of being a poet and writer perhaps?
Virginia’s words of wisdom coming back to haunt me but would I listen?
The real world and fantasy can segue into one another with distinctions blurred and the usual proneness to exaggeration.
Were the exotic whiffs of Bombay mix recipes emanating from a market place bazaar or some nearby dwelling?
Were they just an illusion with factual elements mixed in?
Either way a favourite haunt of both the Ispy’s and the teen couple I had spoken to earlier was a marketplace.
Both had their own agenda with the aherns being the
more devious!
Pumpkin seed baps on spits reeking of sesame oil with the most aromatic seasonings wafting everywhere or so I thought.
Incense and Moroccan spices taunting the nose of this stroller on a mission. But also setting off rumblings in the tummy that couldn’t be sated immediately.
A very vivid image of Virginia with her Mona Lisaesque demeanor appeared.
I was juggling her insights on punctuality and other matters and trying to act on them.
Was I clutching at an ebbing twilight zeal or a burgeoning young at heart momentum?
Distractions make inroads into time but I felt I was being drawn to them.
Did I hear the raucous sound of docker’s voices barely audible but imaginable above the booming traffic?
Were they coming from somewhere close?
Maybe the ships trademark foghorn was setting off an overactive mind or had I supernatural powers at this point in my life?
Whatever the truth, there’s been many a threadbare naval yarn I’ve overheard.
The type that has been twisted, embroidered, embellished even marinated on seas high and low.
Gag induced guffaws billowing upwards as smoke from a chimney stack.
Uproarious bonhomie drowning out the offloading of fetid fish catch.
The vortex of a spiraling timeline giddy with impulse and image drove me on in defiance of their colour and charisma.
But before I knew it a wafer thin voice called out from the corner shop, the location of my rendezvous.
“Hello. Hope spring. I’m your date.
Bang on time both of us.”
A spritely lady in her late sixties with profuse greying hair.
Her eyes were so expressive and sparkled with life.
“Don’t know if I shared my last name when we first met.”
“You did.” I replied.
Virginia, would be proud of my recollection.
“Did you get my call earlier this morning reminding you of the date?”
Hope Spring queried.
“I must have missed it.” Said I archly.
“I also wanted to ask how the poem was going?
We started talking casually as you were writing it.
You were having trouble naming it.”
She said.
“I couldn’t think … how about?”
We both spoke at the same time and laughed.
“Hope ….hope springs eternal!”
The good of it all had us in stitches. I doubt my aunt Virginia would have approved with her dislike of such humour.
“Have you got the poem with you?” Hope enquired.
“No. Sorry, hope some of the lines are a bit muddied.” A reply that made me blush.
Virginia would have scowled.
“Maybe the next time we meet you’ll have it done.” Hope again.
That sounds promising I muttered to myself.
“Yahoo…..you two love birds.
Have fun. See you at the local coffee house.”
Sonia and Winifred's message as they passed by on their bicycles jolting us out of our conversation.
“Lovely people. Maybe we should take their advice and head off that way.”
Hope placing her right hand on mine.
I nodded in agreement.
“I’ve had this strange feeling all day that I’m being watched… another presence.
Ever had that feeling ?” Miss Spring enquired
innocently.
“As I haven’t been in this town for long
it seems more intense than the usual curiosity.” She continued.
“Shortly after I arrived in this
area I met a charming couple called the aherns.
They warned me of gossips who fed on eavesdropping and misfortune.
Maybe that’s it. I’m certainly grateful for their warning.” Said Hope.
I could barely restrain myself at this bizarre twist that Virginia would definitely
have found amusing.
At that I walked towards the cafe with Hope while craning my neck, taking in all all my surroundings and noticing everything!!