Maria

My education; What can I say?

I have been trying to write

But have not finished  

I have written pages and pages but

Cannot as yet send them

Now I am whining

Forgive me, the headache this has given me  

has left me distressed

So this is the only way I can make some progress

And have something for you to read.

One language,

 one country for the first ten years

Then on to another

Going from top of the class

To the bottom of the ladder

I remember teachers crying and fleeing classrooms

Alarm clocks in desks set to ring together 

Bullies who revelled  on  misery and mayhem

But I was just stuck there unable to flee

Being thought a dunce unable to speak

I really did get lost  in  Regent’s park  zoo

Mesmerised by  the elephants 

Grazing peacefully side by side

Enthralled with their majesty and grace

 As they  munched together resigned to their fate

I remember my grandmother’s stories

 that would never end until we fell asleep. 

The starry sky full of twinkling stars

I remember the  puzzles she set me

Her blessing every time I helped her

She must have known I would need them

As she held on to me going to church

Whilst the church bells chimed or tolled

I remember playing

In the amphitheatre at Salamis

Where headless statues stood

Graceful beings of a bygone era

A monastery with frescoes of the apostles on the walls

What did it matter that we didn’t have museums

I remember playing hide and seek in fields of golden wheat

Or hiding behind gnarled old olive trees

I remember fig , carob, pomegranate  and apricot trees,

Water melons, tomatoes  and grapes dangling from vines 

And I nearly forgot, flocks of sheep and milk divine

Aunts making cheese, baking bread

Embroidery and lace on cotton and silk

Wool being spun and 

Weaving on a loom, adults

Picking cotton outside in the evening

And the story teller’s scary stories

I remember the cat lurking and purring

Tail in the air

Every time my mother cooked fish

Fresh from the sea that morning

I remember everyone knew my name

And that I was my grandfather’s granddaughter

Except of course the  soldiers

The house to house searches 

and curfews

Soldiers stopping the bus

Bandaged jaws and red lacerated backs

 I remember a  crumbing school without any books

Except one a year that we studied with the teacher

Arithmetic on a blackboard, a teacher so strict

You got on with it, I remember

Empty fading walls or was there a picture of Queen Elizabeth

In the headteacher’s office? 

Later on applying for jobs

I read that Lambeth  was an equal opportunities employer

It considered applications equally from

Gays, lesbians and ethnic minorities