Poem 38
This was a biggie in more ways than one … seventeen poems arranged in sequence it also marked a natural end to my years of writing and seeking to publish poetry as my life and priorities changed with the birth of my daughter, beginning to work in television writing, and concentrating on theatre with whatever time and energy I had left …
… published in Sport 3 in October 1989 To The Roughhouse is about the process of me becoming a father, starting before the birth and moving on through the first months of Katherine’s life …
… notes for each poem as follows …
i This time the screen showed it all refers back to the ultrasound scan in Ectopic Pregnancy (Poem 34) … this time would be different …
ii to the mother … the appropriate preconditions and launching pad …
iii thinking myself into the POV of the baby in utero – and the mysteries a couple of inches of skin and flesh separate …
iv true story about family (all that can go right and all that can go wrong) the tiny and vast contingencies between who you are and who you might have been … and for the becoming-parent who you are now and who you will be …
v I can remember coming home from a play workshop and having to polyurethane the cork kitchen tiles at one in the morning …
vi poised on the brink, looking backwards to look forward …
vii drama under cover of night …
viii birth as being messed with … the first time the question presents itself ‘Why can’t they all just leave me alone?’ …
ix the frightening largeness and peril of the world … fear gripped me … just the short journey home from the hospital was a white-knuckle ride …
(I could have ended this with ‘off of’ as in Ian Wedde’s Pathway To The Sea – but he’d kind of staked his claim on that … )
x a little adjustment going on … nice wordplay on change … and does that final couplet sum up a baby or what?
xi taking a wider (or deeper) view … continuity, transient permanence, families, houses … someone saw this regrowth on a site where a house had been removed and told me about how long gorse seeds can wait … to have a child is to realise you’re just stepping across the sun …
xii love brings fear … those first three months can be long …
xiii breath to breath, still the gulf between …
xiv it was a tree to mark the birth … more continuity and circularity …
( after publication in Sport I rethought the last line, scribbled a few variations on a green slip of paper I slid between the pages … all these years later I found the paper and took my own advice … )
xv a small mind … unfathomable and enjoyable …
xvi a rhapsody … black sand brilliant days and islands green in the sea has always resonated with me …
xvii not me or my son – who was still two years from being born … but something I saw once and bent to make the end-image of this voyage to come to see myself as a father …
To The Roughhouse
i
(Scan -5 months)
Who taught me to clap hands?
I couldn't do it in the womb I know
since I saw my baby
flail
and miss
swimming through a fuzzed sea in a cupboard
this time the screen showed it all
feet
hands virtually a face looking out of the grey
waves
and a heartbeat
a perfect mechanism pumping like a limpet
against the glass
no thought of stopping
ii
(Still talking)
I can't leave you alone and you can't
leave me
it's no wonder we get no work done
we notice silence and track each other down
what are you reading?
what are you doing?
remember …
six years of remembers talking
touching conversing even
in our sleep
this long discussion
left off
regathered
the sound of your voice
from another room
across a corner
of table
sitting here suddenly I think
it's a special occasion
a holiday
let's forget what we're meant
to be doing
have a cup of tea debate
the death penalty
all over again
iii
In the blank room of blood
the world comes muffled
through pipes
distant clangings of actions
and voices
everyone wonders
who's in the room
who kicks back language
through the walls?
whoever it is has their suspicions
they're not alone
the flying saucers of our fingers
bend her sky in our voices call her small planet
through impenetrable cloud
hello baby
anyone home?
sweet taste of blood in heavy
syrup listen with all your new
fish bones
to the thunder …
it's almost as if I was trying
to tell you something
iv
Stephen's mother got put in Porirua
for following a woman home
and refusing to leave
refusing
to believe
the light warm kitchen
wasn't hers
the cat and the children
weren't hers
that the woman
standing dialing
dealing with it all
was entirely
another person
v
What did you want
to repaper the kitchen for
anyway?
here you are as big as a house
in tears because you've made a mess
of the stripping dirty tired
and angry
nothing done the bed not made
hard yellow shavings of paper
everywhere
and you're heavy
and you're clumsy
and you haven't got enough money
and I don't care about the kitchen
and this baby bobbing about
in all the frustration
has just stripped away one more
week
making only five to go
in the middle of the night
those soft nails
move in a kind
of impatience
and
we do our best
to do our best
but she's coming
whether the kitchen's ready
or not
vi
(grandparents)
During the early part of their marriage
he would still jump on his bicycle
and chase a fire engine
when he was
at work she was often
lonely all day and it seemed strange
she had to leave her mother
for an empty house
the first baby she had
she held
and cried
how would she ever
be enough?
and the bicycle was sold for a car
and the world changed
amongst other things
fires becoming far more formal
invitation only
vii
We gardened in the dark for you
pushed your seed well down
swelling
until our feet walked your season
around
the moon screeched up like an ambulance
in its wet light
we grasped your hair and pulled
you came
new potato of a baby
slick with all our
old oils
viii
You cut your lungs on light squeezed
out of her heart's racket
your whole
collapsed universe
people crowd into your life huge
eager to struggle with you teach you
a lesson
you'll never forget
welcome to the roughhouse
I've seen you
once before minus five months
flipping perfect
through your world
you didn't know you weren't born
ix
(Te Mata Peak)
I was afraid my brother would just
step off
because he was a teenager
or that
he would grab me and wrestle
close to the edge
the mountain
was only half there the old head split
and fallen a string
of cars like drops of blood
across the hairline
the wideness appalled me
the whole
draughty butter-coloured world
crammed into view
how could you not fall
when there was so much
to fall off?
x
(She's staying on)
There's three of us living here
now
already when she cries the cat
doesn't bother to raise his
head
perhaps like me
he imagines she's going home
at the end of the week
but it's too late
there's the size of her luggage
for a start
the stuffed dogs and bears
spindly baby furniture
odd bootees between the cushions
buckets of cold water
and drawers of clothes labelled too large
and too small
it's too late
there's no point getting used to her
she's going to want change
to do one thing different every day
to leave nothing
of this
shitting french mustard
waving beautiful fists
xi
When the house was pulled down
after eighty years
gorse sprang up on the bare
rectangle of earth
split straight out of seeds
blocked by floors seeds ticking slower
than footsteps
holding faster than three families' shadows
stepping
across the sun
xii
(The four steps)
1 I look at her
2 more closely
3 place a hand
across her body
tunnelled under blankets
4 with the tip of a finger
stroke her ear
lightly, once
she sighs
she's still alive
xiii
From sleep suddenly she stutters
into life
an engine of grief
our baby who never cries
cries and cries and cries
face bent and pulled
into misery
legs beating invisible scalding water
nails trying to tear strips
off pain
lifting her
her shrieks
swarm with questions
I feel her breath
go hot
into my shoulder
xiv
(Our house is an old house)
We went to plant a tree
and found a green china woman under the ground
discomposed into pieces
you gave her a wash in a saucer
and I found the way her skirt
fitted together
no head or arms
but a foot with very straight
white toes
put to dry on the new kitchen sill
in the same century's slant of afternoon
sun
xv
It only happens
when her mother baths
Katherine laughs
xvi
(for Katherine)
Summer baby at the end of the land's lease
rolling in crushed wax comb
summer baby in the ploughed crisp furrow
the fingerprint of a farm you're a tiny
moving piece of shade
summer baby adrift with the insects
a lizard warming itself on your heart
you find things to play with
all ticking
straw corn sunlight greasing chrome
kissing bumpers to surf
black sand brilliant days and islands
green in the sea
summer baby you swim wherever you are
slow rivers and lounge tables
moving whatever limb
comes before your eyes determined
to row this season
behind you
xvii
A man lifts his baby to his shoulders
and walks off down the beach swaying hugely
like a Christmas tree
with a fat angel
the baby pisses down the broad back
as if it's only his right
to ride his father along the sand waves
tapping at the distant ankles blond mane
gripped in both fists