I met Yvonne Galea over 30 years ago. They had just lost their 15-year-old son and I had just lost my husband in Mauritius. It is grief that brought us together. Thunderclouds of grief.
A year ago she lost her beloved husband Victor of almost 50 years. The seeds of poetry had already been sown while Victor was alive but now, after finding herself alone, with more time on her hands and grief-stricken the gift re-emerged and proved to be cathartic.
We went out to lunch recently in Xaghra where I had not been for a very long time. Like most places in Malta it is over built with flats.
By now Yvonne had written enough poems to be compiled into a small elegant book. Encouraged by friends Mirror of my soul was published and I carried the copy with me so we could discuss it over lunch.
She told me that when Victor was nearing his death, he had asked her to read a poem she had already written and which he knew about: R.I.P. "How wonderful the moment is
To sink my head onto my pillow
And for the strife to cease,
Slip out of the heavy armour
And float away into oblivion,
To turn to ashes,
To disperse with the wind,
To be forgotten,
Never to be mentioned,
To melt away out of time."
How lucky that she was able to have a deathbed conversation with him. We are not all so fortunate.
Some of the poems are an evocative recollection from a life that has known sadness. Here are excerpts of Alone to Cry.
"The grieving pain
That gnaws at the heart
In silence must remain.
For to let it show
Is rebuke to suffer.
You must not cry
But forward move......
So cry alone...
Bring no regret
And cause no fret
Lest abandoned you remain
To lick your wounds
And bear the pain."
Yvonne is a rebel at heart. She has always been. She has never had any religious beliefs: "I have been an atheist since my teens and it wasn't a frivolous decision." Sometimes she jokingly questions my beliefs. If I say "God bless you" she replies: "Hasn't god blessed me enough?" Many of us know that feeling of "Where is God in this?" as we go through desperate grief, disease and unforeseen changes in our life.
She may have no belief in God, however, her kindness never ceases towards her family and friends. She looked after her husband with nothing short of devotion until the last heartbreaking minute.
Her poem Wild Horse is very much Yvonne, the eternal rebel.
"Wild and free
As it should be.
Kick and fight
If needs be.
The wild horse roams
And boundaries never knows.
The world is at his feet.
His power shuns defeat........
His head up high,
Tail in the air,
And in his world
Not a single care.
If caught and harnessed
His spirit broken...
His liberty taken...
His soul forsaken. Etc."
Her love of poetry started after reading a translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. She quotes it liberally but especially the famous "The moving finger writes and having writ moves on; nor all thy piety nor thy wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears can wash away a word of it."
Yes, once a moment happens it is now the past; it's gone and is unchangeable.
Another favourite quote from Omar:
"Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend,
Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie,
Sans wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and - sans End."
She very much believes that life is for living and making the best of things.
She also believes in Destiny.
In her poem Destiny "...Futile to resist/As destiny will insist. No choice we have/But to be brave./No tears to change our fate/Its useless to berate/So as the course is set/Just calmly wait and do not fret."
Yvonne has learnt not to worry. Fate will always have the last word so what is the point of worrying?
Nor does she believe in the free will we are constantly told that we have.
In Free Will she writes: "Through no choice of my own/I landed where I am/And even who I am/Still no choice had I/Of when I'm born/And when I die..."
She again questions how much free will we have in her poem The Book of Life. "Is it true we did have part?/Or was it planned/ from the very start?/Has consciousness really/Been at play?/Or is it that blindly/ All the way/We're pushed/And must obey?"
I agree with her on this one especially. In fact we control none of the fundamental forces and therefore have very limited agency in events. Our latitude of free movement in life is paralyzingly limited. Indeed our existence is a little more than a gamble. We have to play the cards we are given as best we can. Tough luck if we don't like them.
Her poem, Ode to Victor, about her late husband is enough to jerk the tears out of Caligula's eyes.
It isn't all gloom however. True Friendship is a beautiful poem expressed in a few words: "...A priceless possession/Never to be exploited/Sustained by appreciation/To rediscover and cherish/At moments of joy/And others of desperation/True friendship never falters/Never to doubt/a tie to count on/That forever lasts."
The cover of Mirror of My Soul is by the artist Louis Casha. The collection has an erudite introduction by Professor Charles Briffa: "...In fact I have to stress that her poetry is an ongoing process of discovery of herself... the entire collection reflects her various moods," he writes.
The book is produced by Dr Andrew Sciberras who gives his views on the back cover : "...The poetess is passionately in love with language, and has the ability to see in the heart of things, and also to deal with important unconscious material. Galea's poetry is emotion, passion, love, grief - everything that is human..."
This is a gem of a book. It sits on my bedside table ( with other books) but I dip into it from time to time, one poem at a time. Each poem has to be savoured like a glass of good wine as it gradually sinks in and makes you think and think again. Yvonne is a natural poet.