Rachel A

The song of the temperature graphs

I wrote these 3 short verses one for each graph, in an attempt to make them more relatable and fun to be around…

 

I am colour,

I am line,

I am shapes arranged in time

I am zany

I am lively

I zig and zag

And you can’t catch me

 

I am blocky and cake slicey

My middles golden, sunken, sassy,

My base is icy, blue as eyes

My top’s like raspberry red jam pies

 

Now I’m drop and blob and circle

Suspended high and low and middle

Froth from breakers, balloon fiesta

A multi-dotted landscaped vista

 

But if you look a little closer

Lean right in, you’ll hear my whisper

Encapsulating where you were

Or at least the temperature

 

Doesn’t mean that much to you?

Well time to make it feel more true

Open me up and dive right in

Let’s start right at the beg – in – ing

The colour of memories

Do you remember in colour?

Is that a thing?

When I try to remember if that’s true

Searching for a memory to base it on

I find the whole fragile endeavour

melts, dematerialises

into steam, or mist,

becoming less and less discernible

to the point where I am asking

What even is a memory?

Is it something that happened?

is it a story I tell myself about something that’s happened?

I know it’s something I feel in my body

I know I attach emotion and meaning to it

I know there’s first hand and second hand memories

and that I sometimes get these mixed up

and that I embroider and collage and mash up my memories,

mostly without knowing I’m doing it.

But colour …. ?

And then

they come at me

I remember

I remember the bright sky blue of the butterflies in France in May that rise up in clouds from your feet when you walk on the Causse

I remember the hot red of that skirt I bought in Berlin with my mum that I wore at the Berliner Ensemble and the next day in the Tiergarten

I remember the bright shining white of my first bike that was way too big but ‘I would grow into it’ as I wobbled my way through the bicycle proficiency obstacle course

I remember the golden yellow of my childhood room, we each got to choose a colour that was ours so it was easier for our mum to sort out on washing day

I remember the sienna orange of the wall next to the white cot under the multi-coloured fish that hung and spun over the bed of our baby son

I remember