We were very fortunate at Southampton General Hospital this morning because my BCG vaccine procedure began on time and 20 minutes later I was ready to go home, This meant that we were on our way out of the building when an ear-bursting bellow vied with piercing higher tones from the tannoy system instructing everyone to clear the building by the nearest available exit. It seemed that the whole world then walked slowly towards the main doorways. No-one panicked which was a good thing. By the time we had walked to our car, those who still had appointments or work inside, continued to mill about outside. I had warned others approaching that they could expect an evacuation. We recognised many of them as we escaped by car.
It is interesting that I had forgotten the acute discomfort I experienced for the first 48 hours after the first session; I was soon reminded after we returned home. Never mind, I know it will pass.
I spent much of the afternoon reading the first of the three tragedies in the Folio Society’s collection by Federico García Lorca.
The frontispiece above is clearly a portrait of the author himself and that on the front board probably Yerma. This tragic figure struggles with her longing for a child to whom she talks while caressing her empty womb and wishes for passion from her cold husband while trying to suppress her own. She lives in a society where a woman doesn’t count as one unless she has children. Identifying with this belief she engages in fertility rites to help her conceive, yet clings to her honour.
García questions this through the voices of his largely female cast, including gossiping washerwomen; young girls; a sorceress and her acolytes; and the silence of her husband’s shrivelled sisters.
We have music and dance, and the poetic language one would expect from the writer that García is. “The rain smoothes the stones by falling on them, and then the weeds grow – people say they are useless – ….but there they are, I can see them moving their yellow flowers in the wind.” “Have you ever held a live bird in your hand? ….Well [pregnancy is] like that; only in your blood.”
Even the scene directions are telling (Pause. The silence intensifies and without any outward indication one is aware of the struggle between the two) or (The second sister appears and goes over to the doorway, where she stands like a statue in the last light of the evening)
Sue Bradbury, the translator, provides a knowledgeable and well written introduction to the writer and his work.
Presenting Peter Pendrey’s Lino-cuts as they lie on the page offers examples of the poet’s writing.
Wood pigeons are heavy, ungainly, birds more like barrage balloons than delicate creatures who could manage to feed on the crab apples I see beyond my window as they cling precariously to the bending branches and tear at the fruit, dropping as much as they consume. Today they faced the afternoon gloom and allowed rain to drip from their plumage.
This evening we enjoyed further portions of Hrodle Chinese Take Away fare with which I drank one glass of La Macha viña San Juan Merlot, Syrah, Tempranillo 2023.