Old Meg

An old woman in Medieval England mourns the death of a former lover.

Old Meg

 

They killed Tom last night. So my daughter said.

 They come into the cathedral, swords, hauberks and all and hacked him down. 

People say he was a saint.

Maybe.

Priests tell us to be a saint you must first be a man or woman.

Even Jesus had to be a man before becoming the saviour.

He had to s**t and piss, feel hunger’s gnaw. Love’s sweet pain.

Tom knew these. No saint he when he had been young.

Beef-fed ladies and their knights fur trimmed against the cold.

Amongst them rode Tom, Tom of Cheapside, the cloth merchant’s son.

Riding at the side of the young King, the Empress Matilda’s son, tall and Yellow-haired,

Tom, Dark and shorter,

The Tom I had known in the greening of our world.

Barely more than children we lay beside the river.

He gave me ribbons for my hair.

Green ribbons,  as  green as the grass upon which we lay,

And murmured I was fair.

But he went to be a clerk

And I married a Southwark blacksmith, Edwin

A good match my father said.

And so it was.

Love, Children, a home.

Yet.

Her life had been so short.

A flower that had blossomed and then

Had shriveled in the winter.

If life were fragile, how more with a memory.

Fragments of fragments.

Pieces of a broken pot

 Some pieces are missing.

You can never put back together again so why keep the fragments?

They are just …too pretty to throw away.

I lie against my goose down pillow and I listen to the family talk.

Humans jibber.

Rats skitter.

Does any of it matter?

What am I anyway? Toothless. Foolish. Too old to do anything except to wait for death.

Old Meg.

Father John tells me that soon I will be with Edwin again, with Ma and Da, all the ones that I have lost.

Young and strong,

Not what I am now.

It pleases, yet

Part of me longs to lie beside the river with Tom

Green ribbons in my hair.

 

Reviews

[Sharrumkin]

I noticed that I made a mistake using we gave me ribbons. Changed to he gave me. Funny how these tiny mistakes can go unnoticed.
Sharrumkin

[Sharrumkin]

Thank you for your lovely review. It always does a writer good when his or her work is appreciated

[emmajoygreen]

A subtly, suitably written honest tale that I can imagine because of your finely phrased language. A very visual setting out of people within a time when life was what it was, here today then, gone. Yet - to be recalled:

'The Tom I had known in the greening of our world.
Barely more than children we lay beside the river.
We gave me ribbons for my hair.
Green ribbons, as green as the grass upon which we lay,
And murmured I was fair.
But he went to be a clerk
And I married a Southwark blacksmith, Edwin
A good match my father said.
And so it was.'

'Old Meg.
Father John tells me that soon I will be with Edwin again, with Ma and Da, all the ones that I have lost.
Young and strong,
Not what I am now.
It pleases, yet
Part of me longs to lie beside the river with Tom
Green ribbons in my hair.'

A wistful, beautifully fashioned poem; long, yes but so worth reading to discover a past that was as passionate and memorable.. if not far more so, than the present.