Once upon a summer’s day (Family photoshoot)
A poem of yesteryear
Forgotten heirloom — yellowed black-and-white:
‘Woman with two boys upon the river.’
“That’s grandma with you dad and uncle — brave
she was to stand on water in that dinghy!”
Alarming the resemblance: (one of the
Brontë girls), ten years before the second war)
She wasn’t only valiant in the boat —
a lifetime facing frowns and verbal fists
From her man who stood, (in waistcoat), high up
on the shore — took the shot with steady hand,
enforcer of the Ten Commandments: hard
and brutal, easier than granting grace
The older boy, his brother too, had yet
to learn the art of painting on a smile
Kept asking as they blinked against the glare,
“Is Daddy done? Why Sunday clothes today?”
Their mother, eyes not for a moment dare
leave her belov’d benefactor — the price
too often paid, generation after
generation — abundant laws, scant mercy
confusing the instruction ‘bout, being
head of house, allow for callous bullying
caged nightingale — lifetime long forbidden
song — wings clipped — until, lowered in damp earth:
the photographer, raining on his coffin:
scattered tears, clods, a rose; escape in feathered
form, a dove, a virgin bud that blossoms
unabated — blessings to bestow on
boys, now men with families, much catching
up to do, to live, to love, to serve, the
latter she excelled in well, the woman
with two boys — heirloom — yellowed black-and-white
© Danie Botha. October 2018.
You can find more of my writing at daniebotha.com
