Women in the Dunes

(Paintings by Patricia France)

 

Such pale inconspicuous women,

slender, world-weary and wan, they do not

quite fit with this country;

 

it’s as if they are leaving,

have been partially dispossessed

of too much of the love they once had

 

for the people among whom

they were brought up

and have been abandoned to spaces

 

unnurtured yet somehow as alive as dreams.

There is a sense that something extraordinary

happened in their lives

 

that has left them gentle and composed.

Sometimes their heads are cocked to one side

like curious birds

 

listening to the sounds of wind and the sea

which is ever in the background

of the paintings or the mind.

 

Sounds of sand trickling hour-glass moments away,

a sea breeze bending the marram grass

and the women bending too.

 

Their shrillness is brushed out and blown

away. They are of an age

where they seem to know the inner gold

 

to be found under sadness, hurt and sorrow.

And the colours among which they lean resiliently

while the world spins and winds blow

 

are colours of sunlit earth, sea and sky –

oranges, blues, sandy yellows, ochres,

colours of the heart and soul.