St David's Day, and I rediscovered the little flower sent to me by Dianne (with proceeds going to the Marie Curie Cancer Fund) to mark my national day.
     This is not the first time that I have written a poem about what St David's Day might mean for me, but I did not set out today to write a poem about identity.  The real impetus was the lifeguard who shook my wet hand just before I went in for my swim.  I was strangely moved by the fact that some random Catalan actually knew the significance of the day!
     My mother was notorious for her emotional reaction to things ranging from film of Margot Fonteyn dancing sublimely to Labrador puppies in the Andrex adverts.  No matter how crass the appeal to emotion, my mother would duly emote!  I find myself following her easy emotional involvement and am a sucker for what I find emotionally compelling - and believe me it doesn't take something as overwhelming as Bruckner's Seventh to reduce me to a quivering wreck!  So, I do not trust my emotional reactions to things, when my reason is telling me that the quiver is too glib to be convincing.  But, as the person who knew he had a persecution complex said, "It doesn't stop people persecuting me!" in the same way, knowing that I am easily moved doesn't mean that I am not moved!  Which is basically my explanation and justification for the end of the poem!
     Perhaps in twenty years time I will have sufficient poems to form the basis for a short monograph on the subject of St David's Day and what it might mean for a monoglot English speaker living abroad!

Hardy annual

I couldn’t find a red

so wore a blue.

At least it showed up well –

though people must have wondered

why I chose, today, to wear a

flower, artificial, small, discrete –

as far as yellow, bright,

against a background,

dark, can be subdued.

I tell those who I know by sight

that it’s my national day.

A concept that they understand

though theirs, with ‘English’ irony

(that we think’s just our own),

commemorates defeat, complete, defining –

which strangely gave new life.

They have a mythic saint

the English, share as well.

What does mine mean?  To me?

And here and now?

Perhaps the questions asked,

answer themselves?

The ‘struggle’ with identity

pricks only when a gaudy

daffodil in pinned into my shirt.

Turning from the shower

to the pool to start my swim,

a lifeguard smiles and offers me his hand,

unprompted, shaking mine, “¡Felicidades!

For your special day!” he says.

No daffodil, just skin.  He knows.

And I was moved.

Maybe no more than maudlin

sentiment, but something,

obviously, I recognized. 

And was there

water in my eyes before

I actually dived in!

I feel that this poem will undergo a few revisions before I am fully satisfied with what I was trying to say.  The structure is fluid at the moment and perhaps it might be well to tighten it up.

   The blue pencil calls!