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,
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.)
