What April Means to Me

April is the month of Linda’s birthday,

who sat beside me at Library School

when I was – what – 20?

and she a few years younger.

We didn't really start talking 

until second term (that freezing

Melbourne winter). Since then

we’ve hardly stopped

through first jobs,

early romances,

marriages, children,

high-powered library careers, until

the art, the art, the art

at last took over –

the painting, the poetry,

the printed works.

She always looked out for me,

found me work beside her

(she liked working 

with me; I liked that too)

and cajoled me into attending

poetry readings that blew my mind 

and the first meeting

of the Poets Union.

Who else would I invite

to be by my side

when I entered prison

as a poetry tutor?

Who else but she

would commission me

to help stage a national

literacy conference?

Our sons grew up together

in their earliest years – walks with prams
in the Botanic Gardens,

playtimes in both our back yards.

Fast forward. 

Our sons are men

who still count us as family

to each other and them.

And we, now,

elderly widows with cats

living in different States,

chat on facebook (don't feel old)

still admire each other’s poems

agree on politics

meet in mysticism

laugh, tell secrets, laugh….

This poem has gone rambling on

like our lives, our friendship. I suppose 

there must at length come some arbitrary stop.

It doesn't really have an end.

Midweek Motif at Poets United this week asks for poems on April. I didn't think I had any, but then.... 

Six and a half years later, Poets United has become Poets and Storytellers United, and the current prompt at its Friday Writings #101 is, 'I Couldn't Have Done It Without You.' Rommy also asks us to share some of our latest victories. Mine is the publication of a trilogy of books related to those prison workshops mentioned in this poem. I recently told my friend Linda I couldn't have achieved so much in those workshops without her. She said she doubted she played a large part. Believe me, she did! (At the time, one of the prisoners said, 'Those two ladies are the backbone of the workshops.' He said two, not one.)

Oldest Friend

We met sitting next to each other

at Library School, before we had

husbands or children, or even jobs.

But it took us half a term

to begin talking to each other

instead of the girls on our other sides.

Once started, never entirely stopped.

Our sons were companions

in their earliest years, because we

their mothers liked being together.

We both made poems, always.

She came with me to bring

poetry workshops into prison.

She was my boss

at two different libraries

(when, by then, I'd ditched the career

and was working part-time).

She knows where all my bodies

are buried. As I do hers.

And the names of the secret lovers.

A couple of quarrels, soon over.

One large misunderstanding 

moved past rather than resolved.

(Each still feels right, but — shrug.)

Jokes, allusions, and a special nickname

no-one else is left alive 

to understand.

Written as a list poem for 'Friday Recipe' at 'imaginary garden with real toads' (each stanza an item on the list of our friendship's development). Also linked to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #253


Note (re the nickname, now that some readers have worked it out): The person who gave it to me is still very much alive. It was my friend's son, when much too young to be able to say 'Rosemary' with ease. But even he, a man now, possibly doesn't remember, and in any case would not have understood back then how and why others seized on it with delight. But my friend and I remember — as we remember those others who are no longer with us.