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TRUE STORY 

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I grew up poor, but there was a lot of money

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I grew up rich, but I never saw any money

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I had the wealth of ages, and donkeys and mountains and wildflower-woven villages, and the infinite succour of the sea

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Lemons daily stang my tongue, sore with longing 

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My roots fell into Cypriot pebbles and got tangled there. They don’t know how to get out. Now they live under a carob tree and send me the tigers I need. 

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The wild salty hotness stripped me bare of my skin

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The salty bones on the beach sank their teeth into me

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My skin prickles in the itching salt

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It is heat-red from the piercing sun-eye of the bold relentless sky or wind

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A sudden church offers waxy limbs and heavy cool sheltering dark with gold in

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In there is my soul’s heartsease and hunger

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I am not really here, and only here can I live

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Candles will light me

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The ancient sand-stuck candles of the bees of my honey of the forest of my life

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They light my way

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In the folding dark of England

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Listen to Sarah reading the above text:

Image: a sketch of a damaged icon of the Virgin, Church of St John the Baptist, Paphos, Cyprus. © Sarah Dixon

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