Nothing Much Changes

25th Nov 2018

Just thinking of coming to the end of November. Where has that time gone.

Next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent , the start of a new year in the Church .

Some words :

Nothing much changes

She puts her bins out with rhythmic regularity every Tuesday evening at five.

Her little grey audi drives off next morning at eleven and returns an hour later,

I swear to the minute, with her weekly shop.

The same afternoon it goes out again, always at three - back she comes at five,

walking that bit taller - hair cut,  washed and curled, by Miriam

Nothing much changes

On Thursday’s at twelve a taxi stops and out gets Olive, her friend come to lunch. She wears a purple hat and often brings flowers

On Thursdays too, the gardener turns up, in his red van, between one and half past- she’d quite like Derek to be more precise.  

Monday’s if it’s fine her washing’s  on the line by nine o’ clock and her windows are cleaned on the first Monday of every  month

Nothing much changes

On her birthday, in the afternoon, her brother comes, her son and daughter too, all dressed up and bearing gifts and not just one or two.

They stay till late and through the wall echoes the sound of memories and happy times shared.

No, nothing much changes.

Except today, early in the morning, in the dark, thirteen minutes past six it was , she was taken off in an ambulance.

A little while later I phoned her brother.

She’d died, he said, she didn’t suffer.

A brief moment - a light extinguished - an empty house.

Everything  has changed