Songs of Boyhood Memory
Seventeen Bags of Sugar
One Sunday, every month, we visited the ancient crone that was
My mother’s grandmother.
Vast in girth, this tiny woman in her curtain-fabric moo-moos,
Ruled her roost.
I wondered why this kindly lady looked so hard, and was told:
‘She’s had a hard life, boy, so mind your manners, and
Sit nicely.’
With combed hair, in Sunday best,
I listened and watched the solemn litany.
In my memory, every visit is the same.
She was nearing eighty, slower and more hunched, but always the same mean face,
That broke into a sunny, toothless smile.
And always the same old ritual. She looked at me severely, gathered herself,
And announced:
‘You are the spitting image of my brother, Edward…’
Edward, long dead, lost in Passhendaele, one of four brothers who died
For England.
His sepia portrait hung above her chair.
Out came the best china, and my mother helped make tea, slice bread and lay cake
On doilies.
My great grandmother, huge and solid claimed to ‘never eat a thing, these days’
But nibbled bravely, thinking this might be her last.
She died, one morning in her favourite chair.
My mother and her aunt were tasked to clear her tiny home, and in
The kitchen pantry found, piled one atop the other,
Seventeen bags of sugar.
A life’s experience had taught her to
Stockpile while she could.
Clutching a picture frame, my mother stared at me, and said:
‘She had a hard life, son… You are the spitting image of
Her brother,
Edward.’
My mother’s grandmother.
Vast in girth, this tiny woman in her curtain-fabric moo-moos,
Ruled her roost.
I wondered why this kindly lady looked so hard, and was told:
‘She’s had a hard life, boy, so mind your manners, and
Sit nicely.’
With combed hair, in Sunday best,
I listened and watched the solemn litany.
In my memory, every visit is the same.
She was nearing eighty, slower and more hunched, but always the same mean face,
That broke into a sunny, toothless smile.
And always the same old ritual. She looked at me severely, gathered herself,
And announced:
‘You are the spitting image of my brother, Edward…’
Edward, long dead, lost in Passhendaele, one of four brothers who died
For England.
His sepia portrait hung above her chair.
Out came the best china, and my mother helped make tea, slice bread and lay cake
On doilies.
My great grandmother, huge and solid claimed to ‘never eat a thing, these days’
But nibbled bravely, thinking this might be her last.
She died, one morning in her favourite chair.
My mother and her aunt were tasked to clear her tiny home, and in
The kitchen pantry found, piled one atop the other,
Seventeen bags of sugar.
A life’s experience had taught her to
Stockpile while she could.
Clutching a picture frame, my mother stared at me, and said:
‘She had a hard life, son… You are the spitting image of
Her brother,
Edward.’