Tag Archives: parenting

On the Beach

Posted on by

My Daddy is a teacher
From nine till half past three,
And Mummy works all day and night
Just doing things for me.

When Mummy’s work is finished,
(She says she’s never done)
They put me in their little car
To take me for a run.

I have a bright red bucket
Which Mummy bought for me,
And a little pale blue plastic spade
For digging by the sea.

We go down to the seaside
And find a sheltered space,
They doze or read, I make sand pies
Or crawl about the place.

While Daddy talks to Mummy
I fill my mouth with sand,
And then I climb all over them
With more in either hand.

They’re very patient with me,
I really can’t complain,
So when they’ve brushed the sand all off
I do it once again.

At last the sun is setting
And a calm falls on the sea,
And both of them seem very glad
When a calm descends on me.

I take my little plastic spade,
I clutch my bucket red,
And Daddy puts me on his back
And takes me home to bed.

For Helier 2nd April 1971

Duet for Lucy

Posted on by

The girl who smells of roses plays her flute
Beside her window open on the night.
From shadows and disorder in her room,
The measured notes of Bach’s partitas flow
And fall about me in the dusk beneath.
From hidden branches in the copper-beech,
The day’s last blackbird sings in counterpoint.
How still the twilight when the blackbird calls!
How still the garden where her music falls!

Given to Lucy for her 18th birthday, 1 August 1989

Adult Shores

Posted on by

Poem for Bridget

So softly in the summer night
Your fragile vessel has set sail,
Back through your Irish Infancy,
Bound for the Islands of the Blest.

We stand upon our adult shores
And through the curtain of our tears
Perceive at last, in all its grace,
Your loving presence in our lives.

Now comes the gathering of our years,
the harvest of our childhood days,
And in the barns of memory
We store the blessings
of your love.

For my brothers and sisters
In loving memory of our Mother 1903 – 1992