Modestly and most appreciatively, Sarah!

By Stanley Collymore

We were all of us - without any consultation on the part of

those who conceived and biologically sired us, far less

so any permission from us - born into this world that

inescapably, as far as I know, until the emergence

of death and the life hereafter must inevitably

stay here. All well and good that, if we’ve

been provided by those concerned with

a favourable start in life and the subsequent constructive

support, in all of its positive forms, that’s necessarily

and understandably required in the circumstances

that we find ourselves in and is critical for our

likely improvement as human beings. But,

all the same, the onus isn’t to be always,

unswervingly and exclusively that of

those who gave us life, for we too

have our part to play in defining

what we beneficially become

and how we can efficiently

achieve that desired goal.

And you Sarah, young though you evidently

are, have, however, already spectacularly,

thankfully and illustratingly developed

those crucial aspects of life which in

your instinctive and engaging way

you most excitingly empathize

with others, to forever infuse

in those who’re conferred

with the fortuitous luck,

in your case, of even

informally but also

most delightfully

too, in getting

to know you.

© Stanley V. Collymore

24 March 2018.

Author’s Remarks:

This work was completely inspired by, conceived because of and was, therefore, written for and is specifically dedicated to the named person who is visibly mentioned in it. Her name is Sarah, and she is an employee of a supermarket chain called Morrisons where I customarily shop when I am in the UK.

British, though I undoubtedly am, I must honestly say that when it comes to customer service in the UK, and from my personal experience perspective, large supermarket stores as well as other commercial firms, the “service” – if one can actually call it that – is, to say the very least, habitually appalling; and that’s being as polite as I can get, or care to be  in this particular instance. A perpetual state of affairs in which those, for the most part, whose individual job it is to be at minimal ordinarily polite to the paying customer, is as rare as having a snowstorm in Barbados.

In addition, the incredible thing is that many of them do not seem to care, oblivious it would appear to the blindingly obvious fact that those whom they are treating in this rather off-hand manner are actually the ones, at the end of the day, who are actually paying their wages or salaries. But they get away with it and evidently do so for a variety of reasons. Among these, their rank stupidity. However, enough of these endemic lowlifes.

Therefore, it’s a rare treat and an undoubted pleasure when at times, and wholly unexpectedly, one does come across persons in these positions who are not only fully au fait with their jobs but are also polite, helpful and, in a word, human. And that’s where this story starts.

I’d never in all my previous occasions at this specific branch of Morrisons, where the conduct of the staff members there and whom I’d dealt with before is overall excellent, and I honestly do mean that, met Sarah. However, I am sure you will agree with me – those of you who have any worthwhile grey matter for a brain, that is – that there are people that having come across them for very first time one instinctively knows that they’re exceptional.

I am exceedingly well travelled and have met all sorts of people in my life ranging from the good and the bad to the indifferent – and it is all in a day’s work to me. That said, there are some people, who just like a scenic situation that instantaneously and tremendously inspires you – and if you have ever been to Barbados then you will know what I am talking about (smile) – who immediately do the same. And as a poet, who is completely fascinated by things physically or inspirationally beautiful – whether these are animate or inanimate – I always either promptly, or at the very earliest opportunity soon afterwards, passionately commit my thoughts and the beauty of what I saw physically or psychological onto paper, and thereafter a new poem is born.

That’s my general pattern when I’m abroad, and there is no hesitancy on my part in doing so, as I know that when it comes to people there my efforts and actions will be appreciated in the altruistic sense in which they were conceived and subsequently shared. Alas, that is something that I definitely eschew in my home country of Britain, and for very good reasons too.

To begin with, altruism is not a word that the overwhelming majority of people in Britain have any notion of what it is, and even if one were to explain it to them they still either would not understand or actually care. Therefore, taking into consideration my very erudite brain and also my staunch religious upbringing, and chiefly so in the case of my fellow Brits, I always desist in their case of my pointlessly resorting to my casting pearls before swine, both literally and figuratively

And for sound reasons too: Write a poem, against the backdrop I have earlier painted as well as pointed out in the case of a Brit generally, whether that person is male or female, and he or she I can absolutely guarantee you that instinctively as well as invariably that individual will doubtlessly think, and actually believe, that I MUST, quite naturally for them, unquestionably have an ulterior motive in mind for doing what I’ve done. And being unreservedly just as I quite unapologetically am a straight, incontrovertible and an unapologetic heterosexual, Black male in what’s unrestrainedly a markedly proselytized Dyke, Queer and ridiculously professed Transgender Britain - or as one British writer pertinently described the latter situation recently as “men in frocks” - unrestrictedly contaminating this purported green and pleasant land with their presence and attendant paedophilia doings - I emphatically most certainly don’t have to graphically outline the instinctive responses, and the connotations behind them, when someone, who is completely different in mind-set from them, makes an altruistic gesture, even when it’s a literary work of art like poetry.

However, there are a few occasions though when my altruistic nature plainly rebels against my taking such a hesitant approach when I’m in Britain, and accordingly I cautiously embark on taking the proverbial chance. And in doing so, and consequently and enthusiastically writing this poem for Sarah - having earlier, courteously and entirely reciprocally on her part informed her of what I was contemplating doing, and in that procedure charmingly acquiring her full assent - went ahead with this project. And what you now see, read and hopefully enjoy is what I’d gallantly planned on doing all along.