The House That Built Me

The house that built me

was my grandparents’ house

where all the family gathered

for Christmases and big birthdays

in a warm, bustling mass

of aunts, uncles, cousins

flying off in all directions

to raid the orchards

or play with the dogs,

then gathering around the fire

for soup and stories.

Or sometimes just us,

father, mother, little brother and me,

driving down from Launceston

on country roads that were slower then.

The long driveway,

alongside the dark creek

and the waving pampas grass,

up to a real vine-covered cottage.

Nana at the door, beaming,

her arms wide. And inside

silver-haired Grandpa

rising from his writing desk

or his rocking chair.

Decades later, in my own home,

I had such a rocking chair.

Not the same one, but like.

I got it on purpose, of course.

I had the same typewriter, Grandpa’s own,

a black Remington he left me

when he died, when I was nine.

He wrote me so many letters

on that machine.

He knew I would use it

to write poems, and I did,

as well as letters.

The house that built me was surrounded

by trees of orchard and forest

and borders of tall, dark pines.

There were hollows with red bells of heath

where my cousin Suzanne and I

(the oldest two, near in age)

made secret places

to commune with fairies.

I saw my first blue-tongue lizard

when I was five, and screamed —

we’d been warned about snakes —

and my first shy, soft splash of platypus.

We kids knew we mustn’t wander

too deep into the bush

for fear of the hidden well,

camouflaged like a trap

under fallen leaves and scrub.

Legend said a child long ago

had fallen in and drowned,

others had disappeared

and were never found.

Of course we sneaked away

to hunt for the well, every year,

but none of us ever discovered

that deep, deadly place.

The house that built me

had a sunken bath, pale green,

the rim at floor level,

easy for kids. The kitchen

with its huge unpolished table

was full of the smell

of bottled fruit and rolled-out flour,

and the rise and fall of women’s voices.

I never took to the cooking,

though my cousin Suzanne did.

Me, I was listening

to the cadences, and the stories.

I was watching the sleek black fall

of my Aunty Franki’s hair,

my Aunty Ella’s pale gold bun

heavy on the back of her neck,

and my Nana’s ample lap

covered by a thick white apron.

Around the fire of an evening

I heard our histories passed down,

strange and magickal to me

as fairy stories in books —

as the books of family photos

mixed on the wooden shelves

with novels and poetry,

encyclopaedias, travellers’ tales

and fairy stories too.

In the house that built me, I sat

curled on the floor, with my head

resting on my father’s knee.

I knew that my mother

was the prettiest woman there,

my Nana the kindest,

my Grandpa the wisest man,

and my Dad a sure, safe haven.

Linked to 'imaginary garden with real toads', Poems in April: 
The House That Built You