Edward Bear

Church bells and birdsong

fill the air

I am slicing mangoes,

waiting for someone

I am waiting for words

to come;

I am waiting for sadness

to fall away

like red rose petals

in the hot bright sun.

I am feeding the birds

So more will come.

Something is moving

in the high birch tree

Where light and shadow meet

Someone is speaking to me.

I listen, carefully –

“I am always here,”

says that voice to me.

And to the quiet place

where the silence will be,

“Good night, good night,

As sweet repose and rest,

Come to thy heart,

As that within my breast.”

It was Dr Dawn Owen's funeral today, and I recited this poem, and gave a little speech to the gathering about how much Dad used to tease her. Sometimes, while reading an article from the newspaper, she would stop, look up over her spectacles and suddenly say, "This chap is twittering on. Shall I continue, or move on?"

"Ride on!" father would say, or more succinctly, "Next!"

She was his reader for five years. He misses her. "The newspapers are piling up!" he warned, as she lay in hospital. "Bully," she responded.

Her brother James gave the most gloriously moving rendition of Chopin's Raindrop, Prelude 15. And then later, in the Church hall, several of her illustrations and books on parasitology were displayed. Most significant among them, was a paper she delivered titled 'Some observations on the disease of Brunus edwardii (species nova)': a serious paper delivered at a conference discussing the traumatic physical and emotional conditions suffered by the species Brunus edwardii, otherwise known as Edward Bear (more commonly known as teddy bear). Here is a sample:

Case 3: A 10 year old bear, which had been owned successively by three siblings. The normal yellow coat colour had changed to a dirty grey, there was extensive alopecia which had progressed to "threadbearness" over the ears, nose and limb extremities... Old age and persistent handling with transport by one limb were the main reasons for the chronic debility, for which there is no satisfactory treatment.

The parasitologists and zoologists present at the conference listened intently, nodding cleverly, until the bright shiny pebble dropped. They'd been had! 

She received a standing ovation.

photos: Plant-talk.org,  flickr.com