Mindometry: Family Origins - A Child Makes Meaning

Writing for the States of Mind Collection, Mindometry)

Siblingometry

-Making Prisms of Meaning.

 

This family is a square:

at each corner is a child;

the hexagon at its centre

surrounds the lynchpin -

the charismatic mother.

The sides of the hexagon

consist of the beloved dead.

and the generations to come,

who send their own stories

swinging onwards and backwards 

in time..

  

              Child One:  Boy One

She wanted to make you brave like her

but she should have loved you more.

You are the tender one, your bruised personality

springing out of injury and unintended hurt -

loving music, following fashion

playing out the role of victim

with justified conviction

your hesitancy hiding

a romantic heart

that crashed and broke too early.

Child Two: Girl One

You were the feisty one -

the most like her, with your hot temper

and your challenging demeanour.

She was bound to steal your cigarettes

and smoke them to teach you a lesson

You were bound to be the one to test her to the limits,

to call her grown-up bluff. In the end,

you built  your wall of worldly success and family life.

So, defeated, she was driven to surrender

her power and ultimately keep her distance.

Child Three : Girl Two

You idolised and feared your mother

and tried to please her with cups of tea.

And – your stories between hard covers.

Needy and watchful, with your eagle eyes,

your bat-like ears, you tried to make sense of the language

and action around you - at first without understanding.

But you forgot nothing. Your primal perceptions became

Memories which you wove into stories  that both hid

and revealed a difficult  truth. To know you

the world  would need to decode your stories

and fact or fiction - fabricate its own prisms of meaning

Child Four: Boy Two

You were the last, the final product

of a soul-mating-bond cut off  too early.

You were her baby, her ewe lamb:

clever and self-determined.

Normally frugal, she’d make any sacrifice for you –

sweets and bikes galore, demonstrating  pride

and admiration. I remember the day when,

bold as ever, after diving with too much ardour

into a stony shallow river, you came home

with a bloody chest.

I watched her pick out the small stones

and bandage you gently,

with a nurse’s care.

(C) Wendy Robertson 2017

Remembering Iris

My time in London with daughter Debora was fun. She is working on a new book and planning the launch  of her marvelous ( mother's pride...) book Gifts from the Garden on the 20th. 

We sorted out some papers and she handed me  a paper with a rather dark, long poem of mine which I'd entirely forgotten. Reading it again I remembered the girl who was its  inspiration - a friend I had when I was nine and she was fourteen. She used to call for me many days to come 'out to play'. Even at that age I thought her home set-up was puzzling. In retrospect her friendship with me was equally puzzling.I now feel that in writing this I was recovering some memory. 

The poem was first written in 1996.  I have edited it further to post it on the blog. It's still dark...

Hope at least you find it interesting.Wx

Remembering Iris

 Men open their wide mouths

teeth bite, bite like lions - 

soft hands, smooth pussy paws -

only going for the cream

lapping it with sandpaper tongues:

blue eyes, large black irises

In the house of her aunt and uncle

is a girl - dreaming, putty faced -

and on her bed  a bedspread.

whose white hanging-down  tassels 

vanish one by one

bitten off by pussy cats, they say.

Their house stands in our row -

Jerry-built like ours, fenced with chicken wire -

although unlike us they have no chickens

The aunt and uncle have red faces  

his more bulbous, hers sharp with make-up,

her hair all yellow feathers, sides upswept.

My father - prone to bad mistakes -

buys a dozen chicks for breakfast eggs.

and on a string above their fluffy heads  

he swings his wedding ring to sex them.

But his ring swings to the left and

tells us they are cocks, every one

No morning chucky eggs for us!

Still, we feed the chicks, clean their cage

cluck over them. But, come Christmas, 

we choke them. Not my father - all soft heart -

but my uncle who smiles as his strong fingers   

squeeze out their little chicken lives.

And by Christmas Day the dreaming girl

has palmed her savings, run right away.

Her aunt calls her a sly cat –

bad to the core  and so ungrateful –

as she burns the bedspread in the garden

fenced all round  with chicken wire.

© Wendy Roberton 1996/2012