Childhood

Childhood 


I

I have etched in my mind
Pictures of that childhood time
Scenes and smells and sounds
Images fixed in memory
Burned deep by the New-Zealand sun
That light bright antipodean sun

In that first town 
Split top to bottom end
By hot tar road
Lined with dusty shingle verges and
Wooden tin roofed houses squatting 
Behind lawns of parched southern grass

In that first town the hospital on the hill
For women having babies
Sat above the statue with names and flowers
For men killed in Europe’s wars

In that first town the shops dotted along the road
Had rails to tie horses 
That were no longer ridden or lean bikes that were
And pubs one at either end of town
For ease of access for men 
And women of a certain sort

In that first town 
The old lady
In whose garden reminders of the never known northern land
Mixed with indigenous flora in cheerful jumbled profusion
Cabbage trees and cherry trees flax bushes and rose bushes
Toi toi plumes and prince of wales feathers
All tossed together in happy confusion

And out the back thronged 
Apple trees and plum trees
Strawberries and gooseberries 
And other fruits
Enough to make you sick with the gorging

Up the hill 
Flocked hens and ducks and geese
In whose defence the old lady waged constant war against ferrets

Her house reached by small legs
Unable to keep up with the urgency of getting there
And in that rush 
Ends of toes torn off on sharp metal roads
To be cleaned and bandaged by hands
Not diverted by other children and demands

In her house
Drawers of sweets and tins of home made cakes
And other spoiling treats
And tea to drink with sugar

In her house my presence 
Overseen by sepia people in picture frames
Whose relatives and friends lay in albums 
Carefully stacked in cupboards
Full of other old and amusing things I didn’t have to share

Her house stuffed full of large dark furniture
Not allowed to see the southern oh so brilliant sun
Rocking chairs and bedrooms 
Morris chairs and front rooms
Cool dim inside rooms 
Orderly and calm
Everything in its place
Including me


II.

At our house in that first town 
We had measles
And a fence to stop little legs from absconding
Up the long road to her house
A garden gate to peer over
A garden rake to trip over and spear one small runaway’s leg
A water tank to climb on and peer into
Mimicking adult concern about the level of the water
Always too low
A concrete roller in the paddock out back 
To make a seesaw on and fall off and crack
The five year old head

At our house in that first town
All us kids slept in one room
And I don't remember how we fitted in

At our house in that first town
One bonfire night
Someone in a guy fawkes mask
Peered in the window
And became in the searing heat of childish terror
A nightmare that lives with me still in a fear of faces at windows

Our house measured by the distance to her house
Our house
Lined up in the identification parade 
Of state houses
Faceless little asbestos boxes
Passed by
Twice a day blue buses
Delivering milk and news buses
Carrying outside views buses


III

In that other town
That flat jumbled round town
That no place to run to town
Life was bound up by school
And by those who inhabited schools

Adults who terrified
Whose narrow gutting actions marked tender places
As permanently as the tattooer's needles marks skin

I remember all those who tattooed us
Slowly pain-staking out the child
Their needles tap tap tapping
I remember those who etched
Their disciplinary patterns with acid tongue
And those who carved their mark
With calculated exclusion

But we did not choose to be inscribed
Nor did we have comfort of triumph over pain
Just bewildered fear and urge to be good again

I remember the times of humiliation when adults 
Sharpened their dull wits on young hearts
Forgot their youth and pinned the loss on us

I remember hating
Not them but me
For being so unworthy
Self loathing cuts deep
And leaves important places 
Deeply scarred and weak

I remember
And the remembering is cold and dry and bleak

















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