Eight years is the gap between my youngest daughter and her sister.
When the youngest was thirty, the family were sitting around a restaurant table when she tapped her glass and said aloud: “Dad, I want you to be honest with me.” That got everyone’s attention.
“Was I a mistake?” A fair question but I would’ve welcomed a bit of notice.
“You weren’t a mistake, sweetheart. Such a dreadful word for a child.”
“You’re obfuscating,” she retorted, but it gave me a few seconds to get my brain into gear.
“Your mum and I tried every night for months to conceive you,” I said. “When that didn’t work, I hired a batman outfit, climbed to the top of the wardrobe to dive down. . .”
I got no further as she’d her hands over her ears, mouthing: “Too much, too much.” She hasn’t raised the question since.
Obfuscation is a great word. You can’t miss it now with politicians being interviewed for the general election obfuscating responses when yes or no would suffice. Purdah has become purgatory. Politicians should note Elizabeth Alexander’s earthy poem, read at President Obama’s inauguration:
“Was I a mistake?” A fair question but I would’ve welcomed a bit of notice.
“You weren’t a mistake, sweetheart. Such a dreadful word for a child.”
“You’re obfuscating,” she retorted, but it gave me a few seconds to get my brain into gear.
“Your mum and I tried every night for months to conceive you,” I said. “When that didn’t work, I hired a batman outfit, climbed to the top of the wardrobe to dive down. . .”
I got no further as she’d her hands over her ears, mouthing: “Too much, too much.” She hasn’t raised the question since.
Obfuscation is a great word. You can’t miss it now with politicians being interviewed for the general election obfuscating responses when yes or no would suffice. Purdah has become purgatory. Politicians should note Elizabeth Alexander’s earthy poem, read at President Obama’s inauguration:
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.
We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.
We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of someone and then others, who said
I need to see what’s on the other side.
I know there’s something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.
Poetry Swindon meets at Lower Shaw Farm SN5 5PJ on 3 July from 7pm to 9pm.
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