The Grandmother's Book

When our children were small, my mother had a special book printed for them. It was called ‘The Grandmother’s Book’, and was all about experiences she’d had when she was a child. She illustrated it with several of her collages. Many of these stories were expanded later in my book ‘Views From The Balcony'.  Here is a slightly changed version of 'The Grandmother's Book':

The First Gramophone

When my father brought home

the first gramophone,

the music jumped out,

and pulled me into its dance.

The Mechanical Doll

The Mechanical Doll began to cry.

She picked it and cradled it in her arms.

There, there. It’s all right.

I’ll send it to my grandchildren,

and one magic morning,

you’ll wake up as a real little girl.

The Doll stopped crying,

closed its eyes,

and went to sleep.

    

Abandoned Houses

My first theatres were empty,

abandoned houses.

I could always find a crack

or a broken window to get through.

Inside,

I’d make my entry down the staircase.

as Rose Marie

of the echoing rooms.

My Father Gave Me A Typewriter

At school,

they said I would never learn to write properly,

so my father gave me a typewriter.

I typed my poem about the Spring.

Not the first poem about Spring, said my mother.

But it’s been published, I said.

and if you don’t think I’m a writer,

then I’ll be an actress instead.

My Body Discovered The World

My body discovered the World.

It was big and heavy,

but small enough

to squeeze through the hatch of the hen-coup.

It was high as the house.

My stomach was full of butterflies,

but I had to jump from the roof

to the lawn below.

Crawling under the house,

pressed between the earth and floor-boards,

I could hear my mother walking

on top of me in the room above.

In the Garden of My Childhood

In the garden of my childhood,

I could fly, and run, and climb

and slither, and swim

like all the other creatures.

There was no difference between us.

Until,

one day they cut down the trees

and sold the land to build a house.

All I had left

were words to bring my Garden back.

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