One Fine Day

by Mollie Panter-Downes.


I should probably be reading this in July,

 no matter, it may be set in one hot day,

but the narrator takes us back and forth through the seasons

and I am so enjoying it now.

Laura returning from another dispiriting shopping trip
to an unstaffed house,
reminisces about life before the war,

'coming in to the kitchen one autumn morning.

(Chandler had brought in a basket of pale-yellow pears, 
Victoria's cheeks were red as her little coat as she sat in her pram, 
the spider's webs had looped sparkling bridges 
across the smoky blue ravines of the Michaelmas daisies). 

There stood Mrs Abbey, making an apple charlotte, 

Laura remembered perfectly. 
Her hands flew, trimming bread crusts,

 lining the dish, adding fruit and cloves and brown sugar 

which immediately looked good, appetizing, 

when her fat pink hands touched them. 

Laura had stopped there watching,

for the operation had the fascination 

of the simple thing swiftly and perfectly done.'

Winter Sunshine by Phillis Waters 1940s