Postcards from Malthusia DAY SEVEN: Anne Berkeley

Save the String

 

Save the string in jam jars. (Save them too).

Save the string because you never know

when you’ll next need string or what you’ll need it for.

Save the string. Together, lots of string can make a rope.

 

Save the jam jars. (Save what’s in them too.)

Save the jam jars and their contents because you never know

when you’ll next see jam (or marmalade) again.

Save the jam jars in a cardboard box.

 

Save the cardboard. You may keep the box

to store all the other things you need to save.

Or flatten it to use as insulation

or replacement for broken window glass.

 

Save the string, the jar, the cardboard box.

You never know when you’ll see their like again.

Save the windows too. They’re all you’ve got

to enable you to see outside in comfort

and let those waiting outside see in.

 

 

 

Anne Berkeley’s collection The Men from Praga (Salt) was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre prize. She lives in Cambridgeshire and looks forward to a time when it will be permitted to leave the county again.