sistersday

38d

Like an unnourished rose I see you now, and yours the
Pallor of that city of soot and pigeons…

—George Sutherland Fraser, “A Winter Letter (To my sister in London, from Asmara)”
published in From the Line: Scottish War Poetry 1914–1945 (ASL, 2014)

Today, 2 August, is Sisters Day

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/from_the_line/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #sisters #SistersDay #WarPoem #WarPoetry #WW2

George Sutherland Fraser
A Winter Letter
(To my sister in London, from Asmara)

Like an unnourished rose I see you now, and yours the
Pallor of that city of soot and pigeons
Where the leaf is pale, that seems to curl its tendrils
Always around the painted green of iron,
I imagine you pale among the pigeon droppings,
And with your eyelids shadowed like the violets
They sell in bunches from their pavement baskets,
And I imagine you not with your old buxomness
But slim like the young ladies in the advertisements,
With your hair preened in a mode of cockney smartness
And your hands in the pockets of a heavy coat . . .
Do you think wistfully as I do, my darling,
These mornings when your heart is not in that city,
Reluctant stroller to the Board of Trade,
Of our glittering and resourceful north, with its
Terminus smell in the morning of cured herrings
And its crackling autumn suburbs of burned leaves?
Though I write in winter, and now except for the hollies
The trees in our old garden are all bare:
Now as they walk these streets of flashing mica,

ALT

They puff white steam from their nostrils, men and horses,
And their iron heels strike out sparks from the frosty road!
Now the white mist seeps round the red brick baths by the sea-front
And the children are girning at play with blue fingers
For a sea-coal fire and the starch of a Scotch high-tea,
Now with nipped red cheeks, the girls walk the streets rapidly,
And the shop-window's holly and tinsel can hardly delay.
I think of the swirl of the taffeta schoolgirls at Christmas,
Remembering Bunny whose skin was like cream upon milk,
Remembering Joy with her honey-dark skin and dark glances,
Remembering Rosemary's chatter and eloquent eyes,
Ahimé! and sigh because war with its swoop and its terror
That pounces on Europe and lifts up a life like a leaf,
Though its snell wind whirl you into a niche where you’re cosy
Yet its years eat up youth and the hope of fulfilment of youth.

And last night I dreamt I returned and therefore I write,
Last night my train had drawn up at a black London station,
And there you were waiting to welcome me, strange but the same,
And I shook your gloved hands, kissed your light-powdered cheek, and was waiting
To see your new flat, and your books, and your hats, and your friends,
When I suddenly woke with a lost lonesome head on my pillow,
And black Africa turning beneath me towards her own dawn,
And my heart was so sore that this dream should be snapped at the prologue
That I send you my soreness, dear heart, for the sake of this dream.

ALT

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38d

Early autumn the school trunk would re-appear
as if to say summer was over, time for my sister to disappear…

—Diana Hendry, “Parting (i.m. Julie Betty Rowan)”
published in Second Wind (Saltire Society, 2015)

A poem for Sisters Day

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/parting-0/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #sisters #SistersDay

Parting
Diana Hendry

i.m. Julie Betty Rowan

Early autumn the school trunk would re-appear
as if to say summer was over, time for my sister to disappear.

She was the homely one my mother loved too much.
A North Wales boarding school, my father’s mute reproach.

Me – an avid reader of all Blyton’s stories of St Clare’s –
they kept at home, unaware I longed to go and envied her.

The trunk seemed huge, as deep as sorrow and in it
every vest and sock was named – only love went missing.

I remember most the heavy winter coat she had to wear –
grey as the railway station full of girls, grief in the parting air.

* * * * *

And now she’s gone, the sister I didn’t see
for more than twenty years. O there were letters

now and then and phone calls, but mostly
between us nothing but distance and neglect.

So now I find a deadness in my heart
and numbness where the pain should be.

To friends I say ‘we grew apart,
‘had nothing in common’, though what can compare

with those early years of childhood shared?

ALT

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