healingwords: poetry for the soul

Fiestas are the lifeblood of Valencian village life. Religious celebrations are held all year round but the main fiesta season starts with the passing of Spring into Summer, when days get longer and the sun higher. From May until September a town or village nearby will be in ‘Fiestas’ every week and young people spend the Summer months dancing and partying through the hot nights, coming home with the sunrise. The fiestas are organised by groups of neighbours and  the 'Festeros' with help from the Town Halls and they raise money throughout the year to pay for the weeks events, from fireworks, church processions accompanied by brass bands,  dance bands, races, village paellas and communal suppers. My four adult children were all ‘Festeros’, the young people involved in organising fiestas who then are presented to the village on the opening night, dressed in evening gowns and suits and garlanded with their fiesta sashes. They remember their 'Fiestas' as a hig...

My posting of the poem and image of the ‘Sierra del Carrascal’ encouraged my good friend Nick Clark to send me two of his many lovely drawings of the village. Nick and his extended family have been coming to Parcent on holiday for many years and some of my happiest memories of summer are of the times we all spent together. The poem I have chosen to accompany Nick’s drawings is in memory of one of my first neighbours in Parcent, Joaquina, who I will always recall sitting in the sunshine on her doorstep, chatting with my toddlers. Joaquina, Parcent Slanting sun creeps under washhouse eaves, casts twigged shadow on water scoured stone, warms ridged spine and cotton wisp hair. Joaquina washes, sparrow framed, paper skin, plum stained, vein traced hands pummel wool in nature’s numbing softener. Back hunched, rheumy gaze steadfast, rhythmic plunging, scrubbing, wringing, mind wandering, memories flooding as water...