Sister
For Jennie
What is it about families? We moan
about a brother’s ego-trips, an elder
sister’s bossiness. But growing older,
friends drop away, and pensioned, frail, alone
we find that blood ties are the ones which matter
and even after a lifetime’s bickering
feel comfortable with those with whom we shared
unsatisfactory childhoods, multi-layered
betrayals and guilt, as though seeking to cling
to an original sense of self, with all else pared
away. Perhaps we’re searching too for some
sense of final reconciliation
not just with them as the custodians
of our first flaws and failures, but with the young
tomfool we once were, who chucked all caution
to the wind too often, and who hurt not just
them, then others, but that inner life
where conscience later gives us no relief –
the prosecution case we now can’t hush
by drink or drugs, in happiness or strife.
And maybe as well it’s easier to confess
to those who cannot hide their faults from our
too expert knowledge, than to submit to the power
of priest or shrink – whose pardon matters less
in any case as we yearn for some more
intimate absolution. While therefore
you
and I share this short week, these sunlit walks
along the Thames, quiet early morning talks
sitting in the kitchen over a wake-up brew,
let’s gently, honestly, turn back the clock,
admit mistakes, explore partial perceptions,
treating the past as some rich treasure trove
too long ignored, where we might now resolve
(if each at last can transcend self-protection)
truths we must trust will translate into love.
Tom Vaughan
If you have any thoughts about this poem, Tom
Vaughan would like to hear them
