Happy Fathers Day And Seamus Heaney Dies--- Mid Term Break
Without Prejudice
You tube, Tiger Shark song, Niranjan Halder.......
It's that day again, Fathers Day when we remember fathers everywhere. Some of us with sadness if we have lost one. I have known so many exceptional Dads. Bruce Berry, Kerry Cues Dad, my exes Father, Tiny, Winn, my brother in law, all my brothers and Wayne, my best friend in Sydney. All special in their own way. Mine was funny, talented, a player of a 24 string Hawaiian guitar, a lost Father when he lost a beloved son, a Scotsman proud of his homeland.
A pacifist that fought anyway in the Second World War and taught us his children to be fierce and proud and non violent unlike his brutish father. A lover of his wife and kids, he did his best and for that we all thank him. He had a mentally and physically war wounded wife who he understood, adored and compensated for. He was driven, funny, ambitious and a dreamer of dreams.
The link above shows an Indian man playing a 16 string pedestal Hawaiian guitar. My Dad played 24 strings, on 3 tiers, with a steel in one hand and plucking at the strings with the other. He could make it sing, weep, soar and the music if our Dad remains in us. The song is Tiger Shark, which at first I didn't recall. My older brother reminded me of it, just the other day.
And when I heard it, I immediately recognised it and I probably haven't heard it since I was 2 or 3. But with it all the memories came back. My Dad glasses swept up on to his head, poised over the guitar in the hot front room in Port Augusta. Sundays were rehearsal days after Church. The guitar notes soaring into the ceiling and pouring out the windows of the house in Jervois Street.
We kids gathered around, his adoring acolytes, listening to the music, singing along, and later down the track, Jackie, my Sister and Brother, Ian playing bass guitar and acoustic and singing. Ian with his face turned away and Jackie belting it out. Those times, that remembered slice of memory makes me cry on this special day of days, Fathers Day.
I didn't appreciate him enough, didnt hold him tight enough, didnt tell him I loved him enough, and he was so proud of me, his Flowerpot, his Cuddlepie. His little star in the sky with the rosebud mouth, the pretty hair he would brush. Tell me I was pretty when all I felt was ugly, told me to keep going, try harder, never give up. Never, ever to give up.
That I was a scot and I was proud, tough, loving, caring. I have so much to thank him for but mostly for the Music and the love, thanks Poppa, love you always.
And yesterday I was sad to hear of Seamus Heaneys death, the Irish poet Laureate, the happy man, who wrote such heart stopping poetry. I can remember being at Uni and we were studying Poetry and Heaneys Mid Term Break made tears form in my eyes as I read it. On the death of his toddler brother.
Tears that threatened to plop out on to the desk in front of me in fat hot sploshes.
I dragged out a tissue and sniffed up the threatening tears, blew my nose, loudly and heard other sniffs around me in the room.
He was young, his brother and gazing at his coffin, Heaney observed
" A foot for every year "
Those five words resonated in me, like so few ever had. The curt ness, the descriptive text, the reveal of his brothers age, the futility, the sadness, the finality of death.
In total they sum up the poem so perfectly, the hearbreak, the tears, the love of the innocent and the loss of that golden child. Now he will be buried beside him. A loss to the world of English and poetry.
Happy Fathers Day to all Dads xoxo,
http://youtu.be/Ocd61r_-dkk
You tube, Tiger Shark song, Niranjan Halder.......
It's that day again, Fathers Day when we remember fathers everywhere. Some of us with sadness if we have lost one. I have known so many exceptional Dads. Bruce Berry, Kerry Cues Dad, my exes Father, Tiny, Winn, my brother in law, all my brothers and Wayne, my best friend in Sydney. All special in their own way. Mine was funny, talented, a player of a 24 string Hawaiian guitar, a lost Father when he lost a beloved son, a Scotsman proud of his homeland.
A pacifist that fought anyway in the Second World War and taught us his children to be fierce and proud and non violent unlike his brutish father. A lover of his wife and kids, he did his best and for that we all thank him. He had a mentally and physically war wounded wife who he understood, adored and compensated for. He was driven, funny, ambitious and a dreamer of dreams.
The link above shows an Indian man playing a 16 string pedestal Hawaiian guitar. My Dad played 24 strings, on 3 tiers, with a steel in one hand and plucking at the strings with the other. He could make it sing, weep, soar and the music if our Dad remains in us. The song is Tiger Shark, which at first I didn't recall. My older brother reminded me of it, just the other day.
And when I heard it, I immediately recognised it and I probably haven't heard it since I was 2 or 3. But with it all the memories came back. My Dad glasses swept up on to his head, poised over the guitar in the hot front room in Port Augusta. Sundays were rehearsal days after Church. The guitar notes soaring into the ceiling and pouring out the windows of the house in Jervois Street.
We kids gathered around, his adoring acolytes, listening to the music, singing along, and later down the track, Jackie, my Sister and Brother, Ian playing bass guitar and acoustic and singing. Ian with his face turned away and Jackie belting it out. Those times, that remembered slice of memory makes me cry on this special day of days, Fathers Day.
I didn't appreciate him enough, didnt hold him tight enough, didnt tell him I loved him enough, and he was so proud of me, his Flowerpot, his Cuddlepie. His little star in the sky with the rosebud mouth, the pretty hair he would brush. Tell me I was pretty when all I felt was ugly, told me to keep going, try harder, never give up. Never, ever to give up.
That I was a scot and I was proud, tough, loving, caring. I have so much to thank him for but mostly for the Music and the love, thanks Poppa, love you always.
And yesterday I was sad to hear of Seamus Heaneys death, the Irish poet Laureate, the happy man, who wrote such heart stopping poetry. I can remember being at Uni and we were studying Poetry and Heaneys Mid Term Break made tears form in my eyes as I read it. On the death of his toddler brother.
Tears that threatened to plop out on to the desk in front of me in fat hot sploshes.
I dragged out a tissue and sniffed up the threatening tears, blew my nose, loudly and heard other sniffs around me in the room.
He was young, his brother and gazing at his coffin, Heaney observed
" A foot for every year "
Those five words resonated in me, like so few ever had. The curt ness, the descriptive text, the reveal of his brothers age, the futility, the sadness, the finality of death.
In total they sum up the poem so perfectly, the hearbreak, the tears, the love of the innocent and the loss of that golden child. Now he will be buried beside him. A loss to the world of English and poetry.
Mid-Term Break
I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home.
In the porch I met my father crying -
He had always taken funerals in his stride -
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.
The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand
And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble'
Whispers informed strangers that I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand
In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.
Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,
Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple.
He lay in a four foot box, as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.
A four foot box, a foot for every year.
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home.
In the porch I met my father crying -
He had always taken funerals in his stride -
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.
The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand
And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble'
Whispers informed strangers that I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand
In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.
Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,
Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple.
He lay in a four foot box, as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.
A four foot box, a foot for every year.
Happy Fathers Day to all Dads xoxo,
