Category Archives: Childhood

Under the cherry tree

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Come under the cherry tree with me
To rest within its moving pools of shade
And listen to the passing summer wind
High in the leaves.

Nearby, within her cot,
The baby sleeps, dreaming of lives unlived
And faces not yet seen. Hers is the time
Of total innocence, of rosebud promise
And of quiet content. Yours is the time,
When after fears and pain, come flooding joy
And peace and renewed motherhood.

14th August 1976

At Granny’s

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At Granny’s there are lovely stairs
Just made for climbing up and down.
And Pusscat tries to hide from me
Up on the landing out of sight.
I don’t know why she runs from me.
It must be Puppy that she fears
But sees in me another dog
For I, like dogs, am quadruped.
With Granny near in case I fall
(‘Though why I’d do that I can’t tell!).
I kneel upon the lowest step,
Hold tight the bars and start to climb.
I sometimes see the bushy tail
Between the rungs, just out of reach,
But every time I climb a stair
The Pusscat moves on noiselessly.
I reach the landing but she’s gone,
Completely vanished, then I see
The bathroom’s open, small and pink.
I crawl inside and out of sight
I play with Granny’s powder puff.

New Potatoes

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Four tight little rows
Planted in wandering lines,
Two before the house
And two behind,
A signal to the weeds
That we are here to stay,
A gesture of possession
Buried two inches down
In a soil which had not seen
A crop for years.
In the warm spring air
They came up unsure of themselves
With gaps in the winding rows,
The young shoots black-green,
Dark as the crumbled seaweed
On the surface of the soil.
Slowly with each shower of rain,
They bushed and grew
And hid the earth
Which we had banked
Around them.
The winds blew in April,
Turning the leaves brown;
We watched over them
Like sick children.
Came the time for digging
The potatoes lay newborn
On the upturned earth.
My son carried them lovingly
One by one, to place them in the basket.
For him at two years
It was his first crop
But so it was for us!
Soon the kitchen smelt of mint
And we ate our first fruits
Bathed in butter.

July 1972