Thursday 16th June at 15.00
Wellcome Collection
183 Euston Road
London NW1 2BE
020 7611 7251
A reading from The Memory Poems – stories gifted in conversation with people living with Early Stage Alzheimer’s and their Carers. Here’s a poem inspired by chat over tea and cake.
The Dahlias
My father’s dahlias surprised the world.
Half red, half yellow, they were his children,
Brought to life by magic fingers
And the Hand of Allah
Or God
Or Krishna.
This is India before Partition.
In the Hill Station garden in Poona
Four brothers and two sisters,
Likewise the children of Khan.
How the time has passed
I’ve no idea.
From tennis and badminton
To foxtrot and tango and waltz.
How I waltzed!
I waltzed at cocktail parties,
Dinner parties,
Private Members’ Clubs,
But my husband did not dance.
He sat and talked as I whirled
In and out of the Vienna Woods,
Knowing that he would give me the moon
If I asked.
Imagine,
Fifty years of marriage,
So many moons!
After Partition
The houses were sold and they put up flats
And the past was another country.
But I remember
My father’s dahlias surprised the world.
