Where I'm From

Reading other people's contributions on this theme some months ago first gave me the hankering for a blog where I could post mine. Belatedly, therefore, this is where I am from:

WHERE I’M FROM

I am from Chivers’ jellies, Cadbury’s Drinking Chocolate and a red Raleigh bike
From the Queen’s Coronation, and Music While You Work,
From Peter the budgie and a succession of cats

I am from cow parsley, may blossom, and hedges laced with dog-rose
and grassy meadows existing only in sunlit memory, long since lost under concrete

I am from good manners and respect for authority,
From no hire purchase and a monthly housekeeping allowance,
From respectability, musicality, screaming silences, and the memory of poverty and loss,
From one’s unpredictable rage and pain and the other’s baffled passivity,
And from the scars these left

I am from the wide light-drenched skies of the East Anglian marshes
and from the grey stone and green wet hills of Wales at Christmas,
I am from funny Uncle Geoff who played the organ, and the grandmother who taught in the slums

I am from Sunday School,
But also from the spiritualists’ messages from the dead,
From beliefs that salvaged something lost

I am from holiday walks along the prom, piano lessons, roller skates and scabby knees, from kirby grips, gingham frocks, and socks that wouldn’t stay up,
From Tony Hancock and Tommy Cooper,
and the soccer results on Saturday afternoons

I am from cockling on low tide mudflats, pick-your-own strawberries, and windfall apples,
From albums of fading photographs, and cards kept and treasured; from love, a forgiveness of sorts and a resurrected communication

I am from repression, insecurity, regret, laughter, endurance, and a battered, eccentric faith.
And these are with me still.