a tribute

Having had a few problems lately, I've had good cause to appreciate the blessing of my first marriage, to Maureen, and the remarkable children we managed to produce, Caitlin and Sean. Caitlin, in her late forties, is wonderfully vivacious, independent, intelligent and caring. I don't think I've ever seen a mother who so successfully treats her teenage children, Sorcha and Angus, as her 'close friends', able to discuss problems completely freely. Caitlin has had to deal with great pain in her life, including the loss of her first son, Alex; she has had to battle enormously hard to become the woman she is, radiating life rather than misery, and I admire her deeply for it. She is --when I'm troubled-- a patient, unfailing support to me.

Sean too has had his own arduous battles to fight, and has come through to be a highly successful journalist, novelist, memoirist and --next spring-- under the name Tom Knox-- thriller writer! He has a beautiful little girl, Lucy. He travels the world most of the time, but his family still means a lot to him.

They have achieved all this with --in their early years --a largely 'absent father'. Not physically absent, but with his mind largely elsewhere, on poetry, novels, teaching --or worse. Their childhood was mostly in the hands of their mother, Maureen. She is a remarkable woman, one of quiet strength. With her I had my first unforgettable experience of passion. When we married, it was entirely my fault that problems arose. But she was always for me a source of strength and stability. I wept when, after living together for over 25 years, we parted. I'm glad it led to a very happy second marriage for her. She was --is-- a warm, utterly trustworthy, drily funny Cornishwoman. Salt of the earth. I recall when Hereford College was closed, and I had the choice of taking another post elsewhere at the same decent salary, or strike out as a full-time writer, on the strength of just one novel and a very small redundancy payment. I told her I'd like to take the risk. She said, 'Then do it. I'm with you.'

And now a poem about them, when the children were young. It's a kind of 'domestic' love poem, of the kind I rarely write.

Floods

I liked it when the river around our corner,
once every year or two, would start
to flood. Sandbags were laid at the doors,
we’d carry thermoses and food upstairs,
and wait to see if the Wye would come inside.
Nervous, excited, we all made jokes.

The nights were utterly silent, eerily still.
My wife and children slept, I’d stay awake
and every so often, at our bedroom window,
check how far the waters had reached
up our suburban avenue.

I’d see reflections of streetlights
stretching across the road to our front fence,
taut as violin strings; and feel the tug
of love, its mystery, confined for once
to what alone seemed real, my family.