' ' ' ' ' ' Time Works Differently For Grandmothers(Birthday Poem For Helen) Poem by Dónall Dempsey

I remember your father
kicking in my womb.

The sunshine
fell on the floor

as if it were
worshiping me.

I felt just like I was
the Virgin Mary or something

being told what was what

in some Renaissance
painting by some guy whose

name I can’t even
pronounce.

“Woah there...little one! ”
I said chuckling to the kicking.

“There’s still time enough...less of the rough stuff! ”
I tried to coax it into quietness.

“Don’t be in such...a hurry...I’ll still be here! ”
I smiled to it and myself.

Then I had breakfast of coffee
& scrambled egg & chives
with a little dill & paprika sprinkled on top.

Went on making baby
for all I was worth.

The paprika would explain
the red hair!

God...when it came...it was
a difficult birth.

Felt like a peach...split apart.

Beethoven came into the room
from some passing car radio

& then floated out again
as if he were gliding around
on his own notes.

I tried to follow
where the music was going

but it got entangled
in next door’s clothes line.

A pigeon walked up & down
the window sill

trying to look as if he was
very busy but he was only

passing time
&...poo!

“Shoo! ” I scolded it
and then wondered


what a pigeon would look like
in a nappy.

Need a lot of changing!

I took a stray feather
from a pillow

balanced it on
my swollen belly

(God I was...huge!)

& laughed
as it got kicked off.

“That’s my girl! ”
I grinned

‘cos I was
sure I was

having a girl

but instead
I was

having your father.

Always never knew where I was
with him.

He was always his own
person

even when he hardly even
existed.

Then when he handed me you
& I realised my baby’s had a baby

I just cried
& cried

...’till I
laughed.

*******

A very belated birthday poem for you...you know they don’t come easy.

A birthday poem about...birth! Well, there...ya go!

Meeting you in the flesh(so to speak) was wonderful but you were so much younger than I had expected. Wise head on young shoulders!
Loved seeing the pictures of your daughter and how much she meant to you. The ballerina picture was just classic...perfect little girl.

Years and years ago(apropos to nothing) I found myself visiting a friend’s ancient mother in a geriatric ward. I didn’t even know her and was simply going in place of friend who couldn’t bear to go...I was simply in the area. The ward was awash with memories and time spilling over from countless minds until I was drowning in all those memories that these frail old ladies were casting adrift as they faced their death. They would think that the female nurse tending them was their husband or wouldn’t recognise their own son or believe a total stranger was their own son or daughter.

Time and gender had broken free from their moorings...it was all at once 1922 or 1956...then was now and now was then...and people were being whoever they conjured up...themselves or others or others and themselves simultaneously. They were being their own sisters and mothers as their own selves were slowly slipping away.

Time meant nothing - it was only a container to hold human time in... memories of the memory of memories. Poetry writes in time on the mind.

At the next bed bar one there was a nurse tending to a tiny little woman who was no more than a bag of bones and who kept on repeating the monologue that is the mainstay of this poem. She just kept saying it over and over again so that by the time I left I could say it over and over again.

The nurse looked just like you and spoke just like you...she could have been you...and then suddenly there you were...the real you and this nurse coming together in my mind and so this poem about birth was born.

All you had to do was appear on the scene in Stratford and you brought this poem with you. So...it is your poem...for you.