By Ivor Griffiths
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smell of cooking ham floating over tenements Putney Bridge and Bishops Park benches for miles along the Thames,
that smell of London mud. Watching kids scampering down a hundred steps - playing near the edge At night on a balcony legs through metal railings looking down but surrounded: a tin bath, a mangle and outside carsi rust and flaking paint, potted plants and traffic noise, smell of old gas cookers
turning to see a grey stooped apron mumbling staring into a cup, swirling leaves peer into a future. her eyelids twitched remembering
the smell of steam and gravy, barefoot in winter mud, living alone with seven, olive skins tight curly hair, Spanish gold hidden in rags,
knew the future then she did we live it every day. Her lifes time ebbed away but she needed to tell them all, so we carried her down to the Kent flatlands where her Mother and Sisters died, amongst hops and mud burned her body worshipped the woods and sang;
she twitched in flames and rain steam spattered and hissed as she rose and in low tones spoke and taught us all secret chants of magic and of power
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