It was the most perfect equinoctial evening,
But with the six o’clock sun in drivers’ eyes,
I decided to walk rather than cycle – for a change,
And chose to walk to Rodborough Church,
Rather than straight up the hill to the common;
I sauntered along Spillmans to reach the church gate,
Where, placed carefully within the clambering ivy,
Was a lost shopping list, a middle class preparation
For a dinner party: precisely categorized calligraphy,
Upper case black ink, detailing the requirements:
APPLES BANANAS TOMATOES AVOCADOS CORIANDER LIMES CELERY SALAD
EGGS BAGELS BREAD WRAPS
COLD CHICKEN MINCE SAUSAGES BACON SMOKED SALMON
YOGHURTS SOUR CREAM then four items I couldn’t read shrouded by the branches and leaves of the ivy (Why didn’t I move the branch? I dunno. I think it’s because it felt as though I were regarding an exhibit in a gallery or museum, or perhaps it was the memory of a Christian upbringing …)
MAGAZINES
KiDNEY BEANS
TINNED TOMS
NACHOS
APRICOTS
then another couple of ivy covered items
FROZEN PEAS
Someone had scrawled across this notelet in blue biro,
Poshy doshy – a young hand, condemnatory and judgmental,
Turning the world of class and deference upside down
In an inter-textual, meta-textual sort of way;
It was though Life itself had become the writer
In this churchyard of embedded narratives;
I felt compelled to record this postmodernist happenstance –
So penned these lines, sitting on a gravestone,
In the evening sunshine, imagining
That I would place the scrap of exercise paper
Next to the shopping list in the ivy;
But when I turned the church’s shadowed corner,
I came across this notice:
This is NOT a rubbish bin. Please take all flower wrappings, pots, wreaths and your graveyard rubbish home with you. Thank you
As Louis Armstrong put it in High Society:
‘End of story.’