body { background-color: silver; background-image: url(baroq.gif); } H1 { text-align: center; color: #000099; padding-top: 1em; font-family: cursive; } H2, h3, h4 { margin-left: 3%; margin-right: 12%; color: #000099; } #container { width: 95%; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; margin: 10px auto; padding: 10px; padding-top: 0; background-color: #FFFFf0; color: #333; line-height: 130%; font-family: sans-serif ; font-size: 105%; } #poem {width: 50%; margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%; } #left {float: left; padding: 0 10 0 10; width: 250px; margin: 10px; text-align: center; font-family: cursive;}
The Tsunami CD was my response to the disaster.
I had already given half my Christmas-gift money into one of many collecting buckets when it occurred to me that I could give a lot more with just a few resources. A number of recordings of family and friends stored on my computer hard-drive, although far from perfect technically, were more than adequate to raise a few funds. The CD was put together in under two days. People were unstinting in their generosity. A local firm printed the covers for free, and their supplier gave the paper gratis as well. We gave away copies of the CD for nothing but a voluntary contribution to the disaster fund. My son Matthew, proud of his story-telling contributions, was a particularly energetic salesman. After about three weeks the CD had earned around £500.
While organising the material to include on the CD, I happened to come across a scratchy old tape of my mother reading a poem. The shock I felt was tangible, especially as she prefaced the reading with a greeting to me personally. So of course I had to include it. The poem was
THISTLE and darnell and dock grew there,
And a bush, in the corner, of may,
On the orchard wall I used to sprawl
In the blazing heat of the day;
Half asleep and half awake,
While the birds went twittering by,
And nobody there my lone to share
But Nicholas Nye.
Nicholas Nye was lean and gray,
Lame of leg and old,
More than a score of donkey's years
He had been since he was foaled;
He munched the thistles, purple and spiked,
Would sometimes stoop and sigh,
And turn to his head, as if he said,
"Poor Nicholas Nye!"
Alone with his shadow he'd drowse in the meadow,
Lazily swinging his tail,
At break of day he used to bray,--
Not much too hearty and hale;
But a wonderful gumption was under his skin,
And a clean calm light in his eye,
And once in a while; he'd smile:--
Would Nicholas Nye.
Seem to be smiling at me, he would,
From his bush in the corner, of may,--
Bony and ownerless, widowed and worn,
Knobble-kneed, lonely and gray;
And over the grass would seem to pass
'Neath the deep dark blue of the sky,
Something much better than words between me
And Nicholas Nye.
But dusk would come in the apple boughs,
The green of the glow-worm shine,
The birds in nest would crouch to rest,
And home I'd trudge to mine;
And there, in the moonlight, dark with dew,
Asking not wherefore nor why,
Would brood like a ghost, and as still as a post,
Old Nicholas Nye.