In Memoriam 1971

Certain women. And some young boys.
Women with some uncertainties
but something they knew about
that made them need to say something.
Two of my father’s sisters in childhood
and the first in my own lifetime –
Virginia Woolf and then,
oh in unbearably quickly succession
my only sister. She died
but in her case they called it
a religious withdrawal
synchronous with late adolescence.
In a need for words there were
no words for, it seems to me now
it may have been impossible.
But I was too young then
I too took a long time growing up
and I was not aware of any need
not solved by tears or quickly effaced.
In fact supplied sooner than I was
ready. I conceived and then
I was married soon after.
I was lucky in those days and
it seems to me there were
other women whose troubles were
not to be solved by carrying the baby
even with the help of a wedding ring.
Sylvia Plath was not so simply satisfied.
Then last year the poet, Crae Ritchie,
my friend for not long enough,
a waver of flags for peace and joy.
This year, older, Stevie Smith.
In Scotland – or Ulster – she’d have
survived about half the time
by my stopwatch for I’ve been watching.
It used to be men who died for a cause
that other folk could hardly see. Now
it is women, rattling cans for aid to
the helpless, and young boys drugging
before they’ve even learned brutality?
I, personally, am getting scared
for me and my sons. And what if
I ever have a daughter?
Don’t drown us out of the world:
it could be springtime.