THE DAY HELEN WAS BORN

 

He woke up splendid but then the air turned haze. Westow Croft Maternity in North Yorkshire was an old mansion that had served as a blood hospital during the war. Few know of the strength and suffering of the English people during that fight when the Germans bombed the entire county. It was a Victorian building surrounded by pine trees behind a cemetery. I went in the early hours of the morning and they didn't let me in:

—Your wife is in labor

My wife had been transferred in an ambulance at dawn and I hitchhiked to York and from there I moved to the town on a barren called “moors” where the wind blows hard. I was very nervous and I amused myself taking walks around the place, there was not a soul, I entered the cemetery. I remember well there was a recent burial of a twenty year old girl. The flowers and the mortuary wreath were fresh and the disturbed earth was piled up in a mound. I took out the rosary that I always carry with me and prayed the five mysteries for that unknown young woman who had just been buried precisely when my daughter was about to be born. It was a slow and difficult birth. Suzanne was given chloroform, no epidural. In the 1970s, English gynecology was still in its infancy and seemed very primitive to me. All day I entertained myself absorbed in my thoughts. Finally, at half past nine at night, precisely at that time I had come into the world twenty-six years ago, my first daughter arrived in this valley of tears; I still can't get rid of that impression. Suzanne was tired but she gave me a smile with her gay green eyes, she was a beautiful woman the most beautiful in England and she squeezed my hand. And I told her: “Well done Zanny you are a heroine”. Shortly after, Dr. Isherwood, brother of the famous English poet of the 1930s, approached and shook my hand:

 —Mister Parra you have a beautiful daughter.

—Thank you Sir, She is going to be beautiful. We'll call her Helen the shining one.

Isherwood was Pocklington's doctor, he always had a leather briefcase in his hand and a smile on his lips, the stethoscope hanging from his chest. He was the classic English doctor with good bed side manners.

Suzanne's mother and I took a taxi back to Wilberfoss. My poor mother-in-law from whom my wife had inherited her beauty was a bundle of nerves. I think we celebrated the arrival of my firstborn with half a pint of ale me and a babysham ni mother-in-law, it was twelve o'clock at night when we entered our house in Wilberfoss. There was still light in the sky. The limelight the interlubrican of the northern hemisphere. Helen wanted to be born when the days are the longest of the year. Waiting for the midnight sun. The nerves, the love and the longing of that day have not passed me yet. It took me a while to sleep and I wrote this poem

 

WESTOWCROFT CEMETERY

 

Some come and others go, that's how life rolls on and on

Nobody remembers you deceased buried here but I murmur a prayer for your soul when my daughter is going to be born

You sleep there in the churchyard behind the Norman tower of the church

Rest because you are promises under the grass

Of a new life that begins

I can comfort you by saying that there is no death

Vita mutatur non tollitur

Life changes, it doesn't take away

the resurrection will come

sleep and rest

waiting for your arrival

christ will come

The wells of dawn will frolic in the cove

You will hear the cricket sing

in the interregnums

They are secret documents that my Faith has revealed to me

You are dead in hope

 

 

 

HELEN OLIVIA ISABEL JOANA

 

 

Go with such names to life

daughter of my entrails

To the joy of living from suffering, and suffering

Elena the resplendent

Olivia olive branch

what peace you brought us

Fruit of our love and our blood

You were given to us by God

meat of my meat

crying of my crying

Life of my life

that you made more beautiful

 

SAINT JOHN OF BEVERLEY BISHOP AND MARTYR

 

I am dark night

 trafago of my books christmas eve that returns once more

The short and cold nights of Santa Lucia

I hear the bells from the tower of Beverly Cathedral

And the sounds chime your name

That when pronouncing it, the pitchers of happiness of the Danaides are filled

It was the glory of being you

And your image of that girl's photo

Playing with the sand on a Welsh beach

that I carried in my wallet

distant, think,

next feel

Well in love never dies

It is one and indivisible

the smoke from my pipe

Go up to the porches of my room

This little cell where I take refuge

With writing message

I play chess with words

I despair and I get excited

I run away. I cry and shut up

Quiet is the night

An angel next to me smoked

A cigarette

It is comforting to feel the beating of its wings

When it was

He left never to return

And she left on her

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