Vein of Gold - Panda

Precious panda

You were stripped from me with a nasty gift
a lovely little pram for you to live in
and you must stay at Granny's house till she was too frail

Babe in a pram, I clearly remember placing you with great tenderness
and being told I must leave you there
my heart was wrenched from me as you were wheeled away
my mother's arms about me and my tears

you were taken from me with adult persuasion

I was only two

My parents just had too much baggage

my Panda, you didn't fit their plan

And then we flew to the other side of the world

you weren't recollected with any visit

you didn't belong to me anymore

how should I have remembered from limited snap shots?

The light was bad. It was Christmas

What a slap of shock to find

my first memory was the uncomprehending grief for you

And with my granny gone
I imagine you lost to some second hand establishment

or to the bin, My mother purging our lives again with every move

and don't I recognise myself. 

I forgot and remembered too late

the carry cot, white metal with brown canvas hood

sold for a pittance at an auction among the poor

to raise money for an empty church

Ah,

the vain hope of a fusty attic revealing you safe

pathetic searching through the webs for the precise shape and feel of you

so many lookalikes, 

yet I would know you now and hold you tight

You are so lost! I would have to find you in such a precise way

there can be no fakes, there can be no substitutes

I recall an attempt at a paltry copy when I was still a child
too soft, too new, the colours all wrong, the fur too long

and now the transformation for all must return to the vein of gold

I see myself at five,
climbed in to the soft toy shelf at toys r us
it is late at night and my new sister is arrived
I choose Lisa, my favourite girls name

a Siamese cat, stiff and upright, looking at me sideways
but she has the right colour legs and the right colour eyes
I invest all my love in her
and I notice a compensation of cats echoing through my life

and now I know, my mother tells me
you were taken to the empty church for the children to play with
and my Panda
you were eaten by mice

an echo

I have returned from University
my mother in her laundry room
Lisa has been eaten by a dog and can not be mended
like my cake at my first birthday party

Is there is no protection from these animals?
maybe not, but there is compensation if you seek it

A new Lisa, an older sister where there was none before
a snug fit around a broken heart
miraculously met in Kew
Living Lisa and in some way, Panda, you are returned to me

So tempted till the end, I mention my little red Fiat
and the yellow picture on the back of the door combining black and white
completing us
there was gold in it too but it seemed too scary didn't it

Panda in a pram was just too much.
Mummy and daddy had too much baggage
and somehow I lost my libido like that other Panda
I drive a silver car now and in it my two precious polar bears