Old Family Photos

 

In this picture I’m dancing

with my cousin Leo –

as kind as he was handsome.

I must have been 16. He,

older by seven years. 

Now I’m 86. He’s dead.

In this one, I’m a baby,

fat and round, like the beach ball 

posed beside me (a fashion

in baby snaps back then). Pretty

curls, pretty pursed lips, and 

a solemn, shrewd, appraising stare.

Here’s my young mother

in a long winter coat. The few 

trees are bare. Her dark, wavy hair, 

parted in the centre, is pinned 

back off her forehead. She is

holding me up to the light.

Here she is again, kneeling 

in an empty field beside one 

lump of rock. She’s draped it 

with McLean tartan. Red and green. 

Her father’s tartan. (I wonder

if I’m looking at Culloden.)

Of course, she was much

older then. That was the same trip 

when she and my stepfather posed, 

all dressed up – top hat, gloves – 

to attend, of all things, a garden party 

at Buckingham Palace. Such proud smiles!

There’s my little brother, with me 

and his best friend Roger, at The Gorge – 

showing off his balsa-wood boat, The Star,

which our dad made. We are standing

knee-deep in water. That same day 

The Star escaped, tumbling the rapids.

‘Stay there!’ said our dad, pointing

at the shore, as he set off to track it

all the way down to flat water. Only

the slender mast broke. But he found us 

crowded on top of a small, flat rock, 

oblivious of raging swirls. (No photo.)

We come to me in my twenties:

bridesmaid to a childhood friend,

then to my nearest cousin; my graduation;

then all those balls I attended with Don

whom I married first time around.

Even my own wedding.

The histories continued, but

the album comes to an end. This was 

the one I inherited after my mother died, 

the one she filled – mostly with pictures

of me. She wasn’t a cuddly mother, but,

after all, she must have liked me.

Written for Friday Writings #245: Family at Poets and Storytellers United.