MOTHERING SUNDAY IN CAMBRIDGE

or, AN ODE TO BRITISH SUMMER TIME

Angels singing from Eden
Baptist Church — I don't know
about that — though definitely
birds singing outside in Grafton
Street at 5 a.m. where doors down
the young couple who've just moved in
are cooing like doves come first light
—— and later, on bikes, in Jesus' Green,
a mother and daughter singing — as they pass,
I hear my laughter as I read written
in cloud on the backs
of their sky blue coats — the words:
only the birds can sing.

Mothering Sunday. March.

Remembering 2009.     — Helen, David's mother, on her first visit to us in the UK.

— We'd rented a car. Drove her to see monuments across Anglia. Stopping in a village pub for dinner. 

— There, they fêted her as though she would soon be dead. In a room all our own. A fabulous meal. Fine English ale. And, just for her, a rose and a candle-lit 'pudding' (which was cake to her ... her Quebecoise hair held by a ribbon, Marie Antoinette style). 

— We told her that all of this was in her honour. The waitress willingly played along. It was only as we left, she wished her a "Happy Mother's Day!" 

— When we got to the car, out of ear-shot, she said, "What's wrong wit' her?  C'est absolument fou là!  Mon ostie de saint-sacrament de câlice de crisse! [*no English translation*]  Mother's Day's not 'til May. What's wrong wit' her?" 

— On the ride home, while she was holding the rose like a nosegay as we drove through the Fens freshly spread with manure, we told her: "It's Mothering Sunday. In the UK, today is Mother's Day. And, it was all to honour [her]."  I think that David first actually told her that they give roses to all of the women this time of year "parce que tout le domaine est couvert de merde"   — Happy Mother's Day, indeed.