Wild Child

On Mothers Day

As Billy Collins memorably noted, it can be challenging to take on something as large as the debt we owe our mothers. Instead of trying to confront the topic directly, Collins chose an image - making a lanyard at camp - as his ‘point of entry’. So, this is my ‘lanyard’, a gift to my mum, which I know will be as warmly received as it is wholly inadequate when compared to all that she has given me.

The other day my Mum sent me this photo, which brought back such delightful, vivid memories, and inspired me to write the poem below. Much more than that though, it reminded me of the idyllic childhood she gave me, surrounded by the woods and streams of East Sussex. So, thank you Mum, for everything, but especially for encouraging me to live my life so fully and so free, and to be just as wild as I could be.

I don’t know why
but I imagined in my future
there would be no use for shoes.

And anyone who’s really loved
a pair of jeans will tell you this:
they don’t need knees.

I remember savoring the earthy
smell of my muddy clothes -
faintly metallic, and sometimes
still damp with last night’s dew.

I would find them in a pile at the
end of my bed every morning,
and
then
struggle
into them,
before escaping
the dark house with a creak
from the hinges of the back door.

The brick terrace brilliant
in the early morning sun,
its mossy tufts warm underfoot.

The thick inky grass of the still-
shaded orchard, clammy
and clinging to my soles.

Dazzling shards of light scattered
by hazel leaves, like ten thousand
prisms in the thicket above,

scattered again by the rippled
surface of the water, tracing
the light in wrinkled shadows
on the rusty pebbles of the stream.

I was free back then
I was wiser too, so
I didn’t know that yet.

Happy Mothers Day, Mum, I love you so very much.