Marvellous Miranda

She grew up in a healthy home where fruit was plentiful,
where the air was fresh – hay and woodsmoke scented.
Posh but poor parents were practical, skilled for self-reliance;
‘make do and mend’ made for independence.

Pragmatic to the core – not a jot of self-pity;
“Just get on with it,” she cried, when abandoned
by her feckless husband to wartime rations, bean stews
and boiled potatoes stretched out to make ends meet.

“I can’t bake, but I know how to pick a good horse.”
She regales with tales of horse fairs; wowing the Irish
by “getting her lippy on” or sharing a snore-filled night
in a horse van, with a trader whose false-teeth rattled.

She complains without moaning, cares without smothering;
her well chosen words draw caricatures without cruelty.
She is resilient and hardy – plucky Miranda has spirit;
the old fashioned sort, usually found during Blitzkriegs.

My friend, Miranda, is a marvel.