Beginnings

When I was just two years and nine days old, my little sister came into the world. I don't know why my dad thought I needed a present to mark the occasion but I doubt very much that he was aware of the impact the three little books he gave me would have on my life.

They were by the creator of Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne: When We Were Very Young, Now We Are Six, and The House at Pooh Corner. I adored these books - especially the first two - and even now I love to pull them off the bookcase and read them loud and animated like a primary school librarian.

I don't know why I love these poems so much and I don't want to think about it too deeply in case it tarnishes the beautiful innocence of it all. But I do know there's something uplifting and inspiring and beautiful about the way stories like these can shape a child's imagination; and I'd like to think they had a similar influence on mine.

My favourites have changed over the years. When I was really little I loved one called 'Happiness' which was about John and his great big waterproof boots. As I got older I laughed out loud to 'Bad Sir Brian Botany' (an eccentric old soldier whose long-suffering neighbours took their revenge in a duck pond), and wondered at how that precocious little upstart, James James Morrison Morison Weatherby George Dupree, persuaded the King to help him look for his mother in 'Disobedience'.

But this is my all time favourite AA Milne poem. It's called 'The Four Friends' and it's from When We Were Very Young.

Ernest was an elephant, a great big fellow,
Leonard was a lion with a six foot tail,
George was a goat, and his beard was yellow,
And James was a very small snail.

Leonard had a stall, and a great big strong one,
Earnest had a manger, and its walls were thick,
George found a pen, but I think it was the wrong one,
And James sat down on a brick.

Earnest started trumpeting, and cracked his manger,
Leonard started roaring, and shivered his stall,
James gave a huffle of a snail in danger
And nobody heard him at all.

Earnest started trumpeting and raised such a rumpus,
Leonard started roaring and trying to kick,
James went on a journey with the goats new compass
And he reached the end of his brick.

Ernest was an elephant and very well intentioned,
Leonard was a lion with a brave new tail,
George was a goat, as I think I have mentioned,
but James was only a snail.

Up yours, Mr Kearney!

(Please note, the following material contains language some people may find offensive.)

When I was in grade eight, Mr Kearney, my devilishly handsome English teacher, asked if he could read the poems I had been writing and had collected in a notebook.

All the cool girls at school thought Mr Kearney was the bee’s knees (and I think he did too) but he was much too smooth and pretty for my liking. That was until he asked to read my poems. Suddenly I was completely captivated and infatuated. I tidied up my notebook and presented it to him after class one day.

It was months before he returned my little book and by then I was in loathing with him again. And when I opened it up, I discovered he had gone through with a red pen like he would my school work, ‘correcting’ the poems I had written from my dark but girlish heart. I was crushed.

It’s been years since I thought of that cad Kearney, but he came to mind tonight as I was writing this blog. Y’see, I thought I’d post a poem I wrote for my 21st birthday and as I was keying it in, I found myself tidying things up, replacing words here and there and restructuring an entire verse. And then I thought of him.

If I had have known on the 8th of November 1990, that eighteen years later I would be ‘correcting’ this poem, I think I would have shut my notebook then and there and never written another word.

So here it is… my poem, ‘Revealed’ as written by me on the 8th of November 1990.

All kids ask their parents about stuff they want to know
but I’ll never forget when I asked my mum a couple of years ago
about her and Dad in their courting days, the mood changed in a helluva hurry
there was something she was gonna tell me and I began to worry

She looked at me with this deathly look upon her face
and I’ll never forget the day my mother fell from grace
“What’s up mum? Did I say something that might be wrong?”
She sighed, “Ya father’s not your daddy love, ya daddy was a bong

“It goes back many years when he’d deliver the milk
I’d wait in the moonlit night in my negligee made of silk
Yes, those were the days when I was young and wild and free
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this it was just too dark to see"

Well the years went by, I was out one day and well, you’d never guess
I found him in the handouts queue at the local CES
I rubbed my eyes and looked again, gosh he looked a wreck
With gum leaves over his private parts and bottle tops 'round his neck

I never will forget that day for as long as I shall live
And my poor long suffering mother I was quick to forgive
But forget I won’t; in no hurry will this one be forgot
But I asked, "When’d you two get married mum?" She said, "We did not!”

“Well what about the wedding photos with you in all your glory?”
She looked at me, winked and smiled, “Well, that’s another story”.