Stuart Crouch

American Anthem

2010-05-15T11:19:00.000-04:00

I also do a bit of music. This 'American Anthem' was written in April/May 2010, and is dedicated to all of my U.S. friends.

Birthright - Making Progress

2010-05-02T09:22:00.000-04:00

I started writing my first full length book in January 2009, and had the first chapters finished within a few months. Then came the writer's block that you hear about, and from July to December I wrote precisely nothing... Starting up in December 2009, I've added another 35,000 words, and in so doing, reached the all-important halfway mark. Now, I've got to finish...

Forty Years

2009-05-18T20:16:00.000-04:00

Forty years

Forty years behind me, and
If I’m lucky, another forty more.

A child of the sixties, I spent my first ten years
Learning boyhood rules, multiplication tables,
And playground, rough and tumble codes of honour.
Everything seemed a dangerous risk, and I,
Too confused to see the shades to life,
Saw it all as good or bad.

In the eighties, I became at first a teenager and then a man
But in between, I found and lost first love.
Horizons widened, my own world narrowed,
And I looked beyond my home.

Then came the nineties, and life took off. I spent many hours in pick-up trucks, aeroplanes,
Classrooms, and sandy, street-side parties.
Those seven years in Africa taught me to
Admire every sunset as if it is the last: a truly
African take on seize the day.

I spent the last hours of the old millennium and the first of the new
Under grey Spanish skies. Then, and all too fast
I saw Europe, Asia, and I have watched while others sway to Caribbean beats.
And now?

And now, at forty, I can be thankful
That thirty-nine is over. This worst of years
Has battered me, challenged me, rocked me like the parent of a
Willful child. Bewildered, like a boy of eight again,
Lost in a playground fight,
I have been confounded, questioning,
Finding few answers.

And so, with life’s final horizon a step nearer, I take stock.
Life’s compass has led me north to midnight Arctic seas,
South to Good Hope’s jagged shores,
East to the parched soil of Australian bush, and
West to California’s Golden Gate freedoms.
And all points in between.
I have danced under an African moon, stood frozen, blue-lipped,
In Russia’s winter snow,
Sheltered from Asian monsoon rains, and hidden from the sun in
New World jungles.

And so, if I am lucky, as many years stretch out before me, as behind.
They can be filled with sights and sounds, friendship and love.
Whatever comes, I shall try simply to be happy, come what may.

Stuart Crouch, May 2009

I come up for air (song lyrics)

2009-04-30T17:43:00.000-04:00

I come up for air

Verse

You throw a stone
Into the pool and watch
The rings flash

You throw a line
And pull me in
To the water’s edge

Throw a line
Throw a line

I’m told to sink or swim
As if I have a choice
Head high through
Thick or thin
When you’re here

Chorus

When you’re here
It’s enough
That you let me float by
When you’re here
Life is fine, I can breathe
The sun can shine
When you’re here
I come up for air

Verse

I walk your street
Wait in a bar
The lights, the flowers
And the stars

And if life is that star
You outshine the rest
As my eyes sweep
The night sky

Throw a light
Throw a light
I’m told to sink or swim
As I never, ever had a choice
Head high and
Do or die
When you’re here

Chorus

When you’re here
It’s enough
That you let me float by
When you’re here
Life is fine, I can breathe
The sun can shine
When you’re here
I come up for air

November 2006

Two Weeks (song lyrics)

2009-04-30T17:35:00.001-04:00

Two Weeks

Two weeks of agony
Until I saw you again
I made up stories about us
Which you shattered and blew away

Images of your face
I made up in my mind
Did you injustice
As I saw you standing there
Saw you standing there

I had forgotten
The smile in your eyes
As you sang from your heart
Into my soul
Your heart into my soul

Two weeks of agony
Thinking of you
And the love I needed
Was broken down by you
Broken down by you

It was so clear to us
That there was no hope in trying
As we stood up, shook hands and said
Goodbye
Shook hand and said goodbye

May/June 1990

Spy Thriller - Prologue & Chapter 1 (DRAFT)

2009-04-30T17:29:00.001-04:00

Prologue

Daniel lunged at the figure, desperate to avert the attack, and the bullet missed him, flying just shy of its intended victim. But the horror on the onlookers’ faces made him spin to his right, and the sight that awaited him told the full story. The man he had been trying to reach was dead. Nobody could survive a shot to the head at this range…

Daniel found himself re-living the events of that day, and only now could he realise how difficult it had been to tell the difference between the attacker, the defender, and the victim. Everything now, Daniel’s every thought and every action were focussed on righting this terrible wrong. He must clear his name, punish the criminals, and protect the State.

Chapter 1

It had seemed like hours when the aircraft reached the drop zone and the red light illuminated over Daniel Moss’s head. His training kicked in and he went through a mental checklist, each item like a familiar worn-smooth bead on a rosary, until he was ready. Then, there came that familiar feeling, the exhilarating white-knuckle, pit-of-your-stomach rush that had nothing to do with fear, and everything to do with honour and duty. Daniel was no stranger to this kind of action. He was no green first-timer. Parachute jumping, night exercises, assault course training, and the arcane rules of engagement were what kept him alert, kept him sharp, and kept him sane in a crazy world. He glanced up and the loadmaster looked him straight in the eye, appraising him, with the slight sneer that comes easy to a man who does not jump himself.

“Ready?” the loadmaster asked with considered irony.
Daniel, not a man to be crossed, gave the OK signal, and stood ready.
“Safety off. Five, four, three, two…”

Daniel was out of the plane a split second before the loadmaster could shove him out, mindful that the older man’s fifty year-old reflexes were not as honed as his, and carefully considering the effect of altitude, wind speed and weather conditions on today’s drop. He looked out at the green terrain below, found his bearings, and brought his considerable intellect to bear on the task, for this mission was vital and failure was not an option. Daniel knew that he was more than equal to the challenge and as his feet brushed the grassy surface and he came to a textbook roll-stop, his mind exulted in a job well done. Crouching, eyes scanning for movement like a trained hawk, he looked around and saw once more what his mind had been focusing on for thousands of metres: ‘East Hampton Flying and Parachuting Club – Non-Members Welcome – Jumping Every Sunday’.

What had seemed like hours had been twenty minutes on a Sunday morning. Daniel, a glorified librarian from Monday to Friday, had completed his mission and would be home in time for his roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

Parachuting. Check. Next Sunday would bring another adventure.

Monday morning is never kind, unless you are one of those crypto-American, psycho-babbling, garbage pedlars who find themselves, like, totally centred, and in a serene place right now. To be honest, however, Monday morning at 7.45, on a tube in the scrag-end dinge of old London-town, is probably not the centre that the pseudo-intelligentsia are mind warping into. No, London, and in particular its underground train network is dirty, squalid, and even on a cold February morning, it makes you sweat like a paedophile at a playground.

Daniel Moss had come, quite literally, falling back to earth with a bump. Monday morning, pre-coffee, post-sixty-minute journey on public transport and suffering from both a hangover and stimulation withdrawal, Daniel’s mood hung over him like the silken shroud of his weekend parachute. Every Monday morning was like this and Daniel fought with himself to keep an even keel through to Friday evening when the real living began again. Sitting on the tube, he thought in terms of rhyming pessimism: trudge; drudge; grudge. The lumbering trudge to work, followed by the monotonous drudge at work and the inevitable grudge that he bore towards both work and his fourth decade. What had happened? What had gone wrong? Trudge; drudge; grudge. It was like one of those tongue-twisting, onomatopoeic graphic poems that teachers like to pawn on thick children to make them think that poetry is not really for the elite. Trudge, drudge, grudge, trudge, drudge, grudge. Repeat it over and over, and you get the sound of the tube train, hammering in your Monday morning mind.

Daniel thought of the week stretching out in front of him. What should have been an exciting career move from an academic library to the Ministry of Defence had turned out to be a dud.
Daniel’s first day at the Ministry of Defence had lifted his spirits and raised his expectations. His mentor showed him around the facility and showed him to a shared office.

“You can expect to rotate from one assignment to another for the first year. However, in your case, we may accelerate this, given your experience and your specialisms. Security data transfer is a vital element of our work and we’ll need you to work with our intelligence specialists on a system we’ve been having problems with. Don’t worry, though, it’s just one of the many things we’ll have you working on.”

It had all sounded so plausible. Daniel could look forward to years of exciting and diverse work in the MoD, transferring from one special project to another as they required his expertise. Daniel knew he was a rare find for the MoD, an information specialist, with a background in secure data transfer, and with a security vetting of singular clarity. It was almost too good to be true.
And so Daniel’s first weeks had been a whirlwind of excitement and optimism, as he delved deeper and deeper into the heart of the British establishment.

However, just one month after starting work at the MoD, the government had fallen, unmanned in the face of a wave of unforeseen circumstances and breathtaking hubris, to be replaced by the former opposition in a handover of power that was little more than a regular and well-choreographed flip-flop of Labour to Tory, Tory to Labour. The Ministry of Defence job, that should have put Daniel’s hands on the pulse of defence information, serving national security, and doing his bit for the realm, was blown out of the water. Now, as a Senior Information Officer, Daniel found himself spending hours every day, sequestered in a tiny, locked office, underground, for God’s sake, working on PANDORA.

The former Labour government had been riding on a wave of political apathy, when three things happened in the space of a single month. The sudden death of the new King, and the unseemly battle for the regency, had brought about sympathy for his young daughter, but shed unwelcome light on the courtiers and minor royals, the blue-blooded hangers-on, who saw the girl-queen as little more than carrion. Then, the turn-down, that sounds like what a maid might do to a hotel room bed ***CLUMSY***, but in fact was the source of many a nightmare, turned into a deep recession, and then a profound depression, and the debate over who should wear the ancient and very heavy royal crown started to look superfluous. With Britain on its economic knees, and unable to look up to the balcony of Buckingham Palace for symbolic leadership, horror struck the capital city. Four teenage Saudi exchange students met at Leicester Square, split up, stood outside the House of Commons, Harrods, the Tate Gallery and the new Wembley*** Stadium, and blew themselves and 368 Saturday tourists, shoppers and soccer fans into what might have turned out to, indeed, be the kingdom of heaven. A reeling nation looked to its Prime Minister. But the red-brick, call-me-Jack, former shop steward misread the times. Instead of Churchillian steadfastness, Thatcherite balls, or even Blairite faux-Diana tugging at heartstrings, the PM looked increasingly like a scared estate agent and the writing was on the walls.

Enter Her (tiny) Majesty’s leader of the opposition. Marcus Duncan took the country by storm, speaking appealingly to the masses, the pundits, and the media, and calling for a vote of no confidence, an easy piece of political manoeuvring when there is a majority of three, and the government relies on Plaid Cymru. The vote was called and Duncan won. A relieved and grateful country cheered, not realising in its bovine obeisance that Duncan had not said a word of substance during the inevitable flurry of spin-doctor inspired bullshit. So the nation cheered Marcus Duncan. All, that is, except for Daniel Moss, whose life was to change forever. He remembered the new Prime Minister’s speech:

Fear will turn to the steady gaze of the righteous. Poverty will turn to prosperity. The seeds of doubt that this country can be great will be re-sown with the giant Oaks of freedom. Light will come and the dark hours of the past will fade, replaced by the blazing brightness of hope. We will do this. You and I. Together.

Early on in the new government’s administration, Daniel had been called for a meeting and told by none other than the Defence Secretary himself, that he was to be promoted to a senior post in the MoD’s information management department.

“We all expect great things from you, Moss,” the minister had whispered, as he shook Daniel by the hand, and led him out into a new, and unexpected, future.

Freedom - A Haiku (Bogota, 2009)

2009-04-29T21:04:00.001-04:00

I do what I choose.
You cannot stop me, because
I obey the law

Are you a man? (January 2007) (DRAFT)

2009-04-29T21:03:00.000-04:00

Are you a man?

Are you a man when you teach your son not to cry?
Do you think the tide of fear and doubt sweeps not over the unfeeling?

Are you a man, if you divide, mock, judge or point the vicious finger?
Do you lead the vanguard if those behind you remain blind?

Are you a man, if, arrogant, you blindly assume
That her smile means she is yours, your birthright?
Would you see your mother, sister, daughter shamed like this?

Are you a man when you refuse the help that guides us all?
Do you think to march a lonely path until its end?

Are you a man, who ruled by head not heart, hears not the beating drum of change?
Do you cling to history’s sullied page and hold it true to show your way?

Embrace your brother, love your sister, teach your daughter.
Blaze new trails for your son, and show him the full horizon of his opportunity.

Were you a man until now?
What will you learn?
What will you be tomorrow?

Are you a man?

Sunset City (original concept 2006)

2009-04-29T21:01:00.001-04:00

Sounds of summer sunset come now.
Whilst food is served and families recount the passing day,
Harsh orange urban sunlight turns
In degrees through yellows, blues and reds to an
Angry purple haze, that buzzes through the streets,
Heralding the ascent of the night-time hours.

Blaring car horns cease, the streets
Clear of the rat-a-tat footsteps of an army of office workers
Going home, and open up a path for the drunken swaying of party-goers.
Between the two, the to-ing and the fro-ing, a no-man’s land of stasis
Rules for now, and streets clear to their
Sunday, downtown, litter-strewn deadness.

All around, on electric wires and window ledges,
Fences and in trees, the setting sun
Silences the gossiping of the birds.
The crashing, human noises of day fade.
As day turns to night,
The white light of the blazing day
Changes to the black excitement of the night.

Stories from Botswana (1992 to 1996) (DRAFT)

2009-04-29T20:56:00.000-04:00

Chapter One

When, in November, 1991, I announced my intention the following year to go to Botswana to teach English, the reactions of my friends were diverse but all similarly derisive. 'You don't like the heat!' cried one. Very true. I didn't and I don't. 'You're a German teacher. You can even do French at a push. But English?' said a supportive fellow trainee teacher. I denied my inability, saying that at least it was a language, which upon mature reflection, I have realised I speak really rather well.

But by far the most common reaction to my minor bombshell was a perplexed 'Where?' followed by knowing mumblings of 'Ah' Bechuanaland' by the older friends and a repetition of 'Where?' by the younger ones.

Since then I have often been asked what made me go to Botswana. After all, didn't I teach there for four years in Government senior secondary schools? Did I not follow this feat by a three year stint in South Africa? Time after time I have muttered something about feeling too young to teach straight out of university in Britain, or the U.K. as we professional expatriates grandly call it. I mention the vague desire to see something of the world. However, the truth is that I applied for various jobs and was offered [along with about 40 others] the chance to teach in Botswana. I can still remember the advert in TES, which said something like, 'Come and teach in this hot, dry, country where the people are friendly and the pupils keen to learn, where you will receive a warm welcome...'. Two years later as a friend of mine was leaving Botswana, she wrote to one of our bosses in the Ministry of Education applying in writing for her warm welcome as she had not yet received one.

I say this because it is necessary to make it clear that I was not driven by a bold desire for doing good, offering the hand of friendship to my fellow man, or other such naive expressions of goodness and charity. That I drifted into Botswana and stayed there, did the same in the new South Africa for three years and am now writing this in Hamburg is perhaps proof that one does not need to plan everything, that going with the flow is still possible in the nineties. I am neither noble nor a do good‑er.

Botswana was a far cry from Leeds University where I was learning the considerable art of teaching. There our wonderful tutor, Gary Chambers, had drummed into us the ideas of pace, variety and challenge, getting the biggest boy on your side on day one, using the overhead projector and flash cards and learning a new language so that we would be able to empathise with our students. I chose Danish: Fru Hansen het en bil is about as far as I got. His wise advice to us if we had a problem had often been to 'suck it and see', and for a slightly youthfully impetuous trainee teacher this is advice I followed and continue to follow gratefully.

When I told Gary that I was going to Botswana, he said, 'But we need you here. Then, he winked at me and continued, 'Ah, but they need you there, too.' [504I

Chapter Two

After my arrival in Botswana in August, I992, I took stock of the previous months. Late in May, I had arrived at Farnham Castle, a centre which specialises in induction courses for those intending to live and work overseas. There, I met up with the other intrepid travellers who were also to go to Botswana. No clear pattern has ever emerged as to the type of person who was there other than that none of us seemed to fit in completely in life in the U.K. Several of us were new out of college, and we were joined by youngish couples who took the opportunity of Botswana's cheap and plentiful child care to produce an alarming amount of offspring. These many children born in Botswana were clustered around the town on Molepolole. If you are of childbearing age and do not want to have children, you should definitely not go anywhere near Molepolole. There were also older single people and a smattering of lovely semi retired couples. It struck me once we had arrived in Botswana that if anything held us together it was that there were things about home which we could no longer face and we hoped for something better. This, I believe, was the reason for so many of my group not feeling fulfilled in Botswana, as they had neither been fulfilled at home.

Life was certainly more arduous in Africa and several of the souls I met at Farnham and became friends with later in Botswana found their experiences to be coloured by negative feelings. In the literature which we received on the induction course, we were warned about the sense of dislocation which we would feel. We were leaving behind us everything solid and personal, and we would have to assimilate into a new and very foreign environment, where few of our norms would be valid. We were warned that a sense of purposelessness was a symptom of this disorientation and we were to guard against staring into space. At the time, I rather scoffed at the idea of not fitting in. Had I not been a socialist at the vuppie Loughborough University? Had I not lived for a year in Germany? How bad could Botswana be? How different could Africa be to Europe?

How naive could a twenty‑something be?

Several incidents are worth mentioning from the induction course. I met Gwen Kgabi, who was studying in Britain and was later to become my field officer and later still a great friend. We were also introduced to Kevin Shillington, a historian and author of many books about southern Africa. He appeared at breakfast one morning in what I found out was a safari suit [there were not many of them about in Newcastle where I grew up]. Like a true peasant, I gaped at what I thought was a man wearing his pyjamas, and wondered what I was letting myself in for with this Africa lark. During one of our induction meetings we were told by what I can only describe as a well meaning but misinformed British Council official that our arrival in our villages would be marked by meetings with the chief or headman and expressions of welcome from young and old. That we believed this is a sign of our naivety. Certainly this had been the case many years before when European teachers had been a rarity. The lack of celebration upon our arrival was the cause of some needless bitter resentment, and I have often wondered what our experiences would have been had we been told the simple truth: that Botswana was like any other country in the world, and we were simply there to do a job.

But perhaps I am being too harsh on Botswana for it is indeed not like any other country in the world. Perhaps if I, if we had done our homework properly we would have been better prepared for Botswana.

Several years before, as the first in my family to go to university, I had been hopelessly ill‑prepared for my arrival at college. My prior impressions swung between mortar boards, Dracula outfits and saying matins to the other side of the spectrum to demos, drugs and dithering academics. So it was with my preparations for Botswana. I of course bought a map and comforted myself with the fact that there was a reliable petrol pump in most of the large dots that went for towns. The Macmillan Botswana Traveller's Map also has idyllic pictures of elephants on Chobe river and a Kalahari Bushman in mid‑hunt. Is this what I would be assailed by on my entry into Africa? I am still asked warily by those who have never left Europe whether one looks out of the window in Africa to see antelope pronking and wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plain. You see, they do not know either/ I laugh now and point out the the most one usually sees in Europe is the odd sparrow and perhaps a wren or robin, a squirrel if one is really lucky. Oh yes, I laugh now, but did I have such questions on my lips years ago?

It was decided that I should try and get used to the heat. Teenage prickly heat was an unpleasant memory and if I had known that I would once experience the oddness of teaching Macbeth on a day when the temperature peaked at 45 degrees, I would have gone to Greenland instead. Hubble bubble indeed. I was dispatched on a package holiday [my last] to Tunisia, and boy, was it hot. I sunbathed, and went from pale and interesting to a fair impression of Tunisia's only red herring. I also watched a ballet performed by the Egypt State Ballet Company and fell swooningly in lust with Carole the Thompson's rep. I was also introduced to non‑European stomach complaints which are indeed different to the European variety. Let me only say that they creep up on one, and give the sufferer only a matter of seconds to seek facilities... I was introduced to the drug Immodium and am pleased to say that I have used it only twice, once when my work came before my health and once while hitchhiking along Namibia's Skeleton Coast.

So far, so good. I managed to get my hands on some Botswana schools' syllabuses which were housed inexplicably in the Leeds University library, a superb building. They seemed quite straightforward. There used to be a three year Junior certificate [Forms I to 3I followed by a two year course in forms IV and V, leading to the overseas '0' level. This had recently be reversed and was now two years followed by three. Fine. Since I left Botswana, this has been reversed again, but what of that? The syllabus was similar to the old British '0' level. I was hoping to teach in a Junior school, thinking that my lack of experience in [a] teaching and [b] teaching English would mean that I was not in great demand. Wrong again!

In the final weeks before my departure, I decided many times over what to pack. We had been awarded a baggage allowance of 75 kilos, which is about what I weighed at the time. Four suitcases. If only my allowance had been what I weigh now. What I did take was a kettle, a pan, and a one each of plate, bowl and cup. A pillow, sheets. My favourite ten books. This was an agonising choice. I took Die Wolke [The Cloud] by Gudrun Pausewang, Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night, a dictionary of African mythology [a leaving present from my parents], the Selected Poems of T.S. Eliot and a I945 edition of Le Silence de la Mer by Vercors. I also took five other books which have failed to leave a lasting memory. I packed a small collection of tapes, a pair of binoculars and an idiot proof camera, which survived gross abuse for four years before biting the dust, well really the sand, on a trip to the Kalahari. I took tea towels. Not for drying dishes as it turned out. Placed under a running cold tap and then wrapped around a bottle placed beside an open window, they chill wine very nicely. I did not take any of the following: a good torch, a Swiss army knife, a recipe book, a bottle opener, or any culinary treats like kidney beans, chocolate and good coffee.

On the day that I left, I had packed exactly 70 kilos and had a small bag containing 5 kilos of cabin luggage. I had been as ruthless as I get. I had sacrificed the second set of cutlery. Don't think for a moment that I intended to take two sets of cutlery. Two knives, two forks and two spoons would have been nice, though. Too heavy. I would not be having any dinner parties for a while. I had cut many of my favourite tapes and books. The batteries were taken out of my little, inadequate torch and packaging was removed from everything. The term ,non essential item' took on new meaning as I honed down my belongings to the requisite weight. It was a heartbreaking procedure, as my life was shaved and cut and finally slashed to the barest minimum. However, when I arrived at Heathrow, after a heavy trip from Newcastle via the London underground [an experience to be missed at all costs to one's sanity] I reached check in where other Botswanaward teachers were having grossly overweight suitcases passed by obliging British Airways staff. Thus transpired my next lesson in life. Get streetwise, and play the system like everyone else. I had my Anglo Saxon obedience intact, but to this day I would rather have had luggage and a great sense of shame. This memory was with me when I left Africa. In the space of seven years my 75 kilos had swelled to a house full of, well, stuff. The car, washing machine. pillows, cassette player, gas stoves and detritus of civilised living were jettisoned. A transport company packed my life into I4 boxes of various sizes and a lorry trundled off to Durban. My baggage allowance of 20 kilos was ignored in a most un‑Anglo Saxon like manner and I hauled 35 kilos to Hamburg. I smiled and flirted with the ticket agent and flashed my Lufthansa Miles and More card and got away with it. On the flight, which was half empty [half full if you're an optimist] I asked to move to a row of five free seats and, reader, I slept. Africa had at least taught me something.

The flight to Botswana in August, I992, was long, and later became dreary. It even later became longer and more dreary. There were no highlights and no high jinx. Twelve hour flights when flown economy class ‑ World Traveller is simply too romantic a description for so awful an experience ‑ are truly horrible. As a six foot two hater of enclosed spaces I have no more to say.

Chapter Three

The next two weeks were a haze of virtual reality. We landed in Botswana's capital city, Gaborone, on August I2th, and were ferried to the Sheraton Hotel for our second induction. Stuck in the hermetically sealed confines of a hotel which could have been anywhere in the world, we felt no closer to our goal of working in Botswana. We had air‑conditioning, wall‑to‑wall hotel food consisting of various dead animals cooked in sauces, for disguise, I fancy, rather than for sublime gastronomic enjoyment. Most tantalisingly, there was a huge swimming pool with polished sides, dive boards and a paddling area. And no water. Not a drop. The world's biggest skip could not have looked more incongruous.

Officially, there were language courses and seminars. Now I am a linguist for what it is worth and the teachers we had were indeed very pleasant people. However, that we never passed the most basic phrases of greeting and self description attests to the lethargy of both teacher and student. A typical conversation would consist of:

Teacher: Dumela rra Stuart :Dumela mma Teacher: 0 kae, rra? Stuart :Ke teng. Wena, o Kae Teacher: Mosadi ya gago, o kae? Stuart: Ga ke na mosadi,:

Teacher: Ao! Bathong ba modimo.

Which brought up the interesting cultural comment that as a red blooded 23 year‑old I really should have a wife either at home in the U.K. or as an accompaniment to Africa. Women without husband or [gasp] children were similarly looked upon with a mixture of curiosity and sympathy. I'm now thirty‑something and still a bachelor and the curiosity continues.

I bought a phrase book published by the Pula Press. It has many wonderful expressions, amongst which are the two following gems: under 'General Expressions' we have the memorable Ngwana wa go kganisadiaki o sule' [my sister's child is dead] and under the section of 'On a journey' the expedient 'E sole, e mohuhutso thata' [Rub it down, it has a good deal of sweat]. Answers on a postcard, please, for the noun relating to 'it'.

Like a bus load of gawking tourists we tried our new Setswana [the main language spoken in Botswana] on amused reception and bar staff. They promptly fell about laughing. Our teachers had failed to tell us about the correct pronunciation of high and low tones [Setswana, like Chinese has a tonal quality]. For instance the Setswana word mabele means either sorghum or breasts depending on how it is spoken. Similarly the word koko means either chicken or is used to announce one's arrival at somebody's house or compound. What fun several tipsy British teachers can have with Koko. Dumela mma, ke kopa [I would like] mabele. It must have been hilarious at the time. I wonder if the Botswana Ministry of Education knew what it was letting itself in for. Still, Setswana is a beautiful and lyrical language without the harsh guttural sound and the clicks of other Bantu languages. The word for the month of June is Seetebosigo or 'don't visit at night'. The reason for this is that June is the coldest month and there will not be enough blankets to go around. Nice.

We were also taken on short tours to local places of interest. The Oodi weavers is a cooperative venture which produces beautiful blankets and wall hangings, depicting scenes from rural life. My own wall hanging shows women pounding sorghum into meal and a young girl carrying a baby on her back, set against a backdrop of brightly decorated thatched rondavels. There is also a man sitting under a tree doing nothing. As I say, it is a typical rural scene. We were also taken to the large village of Mochudi which was to be my home for the next two years. [2289I

Chapter Four

First of all, I was one of the lucky ones. Our direct employers in the Ministry, Teaching Service Management [T.S.M.I had arranged in the person of Beauty, an education officer, to transport all of us on several large buses to our schools. The stories I later heard of break downs [mechanical and emotional], loss of belongings, teachers being taken to the wrong school, indeed to the wrong villages, one bus load having to sleep overnight in the bush [i.e. the middle of nowhere], read like the script of a farce, and for years, we referred to a visit to T.S.M. offices as vying with the forces of doom. However, I was lucky. As it turned out, very lucky, for I was collected from the hotel by the incomparable Adam Letham, described in one of the Botswana newspapers as a 'likable little Scot'. Not only likable, Adam is a wise man and nobody's fool, and for me, a great source of solace in the months that were to follow. If, when we left the hotel, I had known what was to befall many of my colleagues on the way to their schools, I would have looked more smug, but as it turned out, I was merely happy to be finally on the way to school. My months of planning were over and the adventure was to begin.

It was not a journey of many days, over sand dunes, rivers and hour upon hour of thorn bush. It was not likely to find a parallel in any part of the Bible. It was not one man's duel to the death with the elements. It was a journey on the main North‑South highway of about 40 minutes, followed by a right turn and another ten minutes. Disappointing? Not for me. It felt like a great trek into the unknown for me, however, and I remember staring at all of the 'sights' as we drove into Mochudi.

The village of Mochudi has a population of about 20,000 and is the administrative capital of Kgatleng district. It is the centre for the Bakgatla tribe, whose totem is the monkey. The Bakgatla are a dispossessed people, coming originally from the Transvaal in South Africa from which they were forced to leave by the Afrikaners in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. It boasts two important buildings from the start of this century, firstly the Dutch Reformed Church, built in I903 and the Mochudi National School which has now been converted into an impressive museum.

Contrary to my expectations, and therefore perfectly natural in Botswana, I had been sent to a senior secondary school rather than a junior secondary school. The school, called Molefi Secondary, was, at the time, one of about 25 senior secondary schools in the whole of Botswana, and I joined the English department, which was responsible for teaching I200 students in Forms III to V. It is hard to describe the school. During the holidays it was an empty shell, a scruffy, almost derelict mass of single storey classroom blocks, with specialist rooms for agriculture, science, home economics, technology and a library. Notably, it was also the only senior school with facilities for the visually impaired. Thus it was linked to a local junior school and the Deborah Retief Memorial hospital, Botswana's centre for eye care. The average general classroom housed 40 students and had its share of metal and wooden desks. Curiously no matter how large or small the number of students in a class, there were always too few desks. An enigma for all teachers to puzzle out. There were also chairs, a scratchy chalk board and tattered notice boards. Ventilation in summer was provided by spaces where windows were supposed to be. This was refreshing in summer but desperately cold in winter, when students and teacher would wrap up in defiance of uniform rules in order to keep warm. Surprised that it is cold in winter? So was I. I had thought that Africa was hot. Another example of my lack of planning. I had packed one sweater in the U.K., a present from my friends Jason and Anne which I had believed to be particularly thoughtless. It came in handy, however, when winter came and early morning temperatures dipped under freezing.

In term time, however, Molefi Secondary School buzzed to the sound of students and their teachers. The students were the cream of their peer group, who had passed the junior certificate and were, therefore, entitled to a place at senior school. If they passed at this level, they would have the chance to go to Polytechnic or the University of Botswana, paid for by the government. For many of them this was enough to ensure hard work. For those whose families lived in poor farming areas, this was a chance to escape the toil of subsistence agricultural life.

I moved into a school house with a man who turned out to be a dispossessed South African on a United Nations refugee passport, who had been a courier between freedom fighters in apartheid South Africa and Libya. Such people do exist. He was also highly volatile and aggressive and our three months of enforced cohabitation were one of the lowest points of my life. During the day he was an impressive, garalous individual, a good teacher and well‑liked by the staff. However, few people saw him after dark. Whatever he was afraid of or felt embittered about clearly assailed him after sunset and he became a different person. I am, physically, rather a gentle soul. Mistake number one was lending him money. Mistake number two was asking him to pay me back. Mistake number three was expecting to talk him around to my point of view. Mistake number four was not ducking the blow. As I limped [metaphorically] to the end of term three months later and threatened to up and leave unless I or he was moved, I was able to reflect with a sense of humour which rarely deserts me, that I had undergone my own personal, made‑to‑measure baptism of fire, and surely things could only get better. I moved, they did and I stayed.

The up side, however, was that in those first three months I had met many kind and generous people, several of whom remain great friends. Professionally, I was helped in particular by two wonderful mentors. The first was Naomi Mnthali, a Malawian based more or less permanently in Botswana. She was and is warm and friendly with a laugh known by the whole school. In her late twenties when I met her, she had been teaching for several years and was working part time on her Master's degree. She taught me at first the basic and later the more subtle aspects of teaching English as a second language and explained patiently several times the demands of the examinations. Her methodical approach and readiness to nurture inexperienced colleagues explain why she is now the head of department at a Gaborone private school. The second of my mentors was Tom Bartlett, the deputy head at Molefi, and, gulp, one of my heroes.

From Tom, I learned a great deal. If Naomi showed me the way to teach English language effectively, it was Tom who did the same for English Literature. He demystified the whole process of studying literature at school level, and proved time and time again that it was all a question of PSQ or point, support and quotation. This is the method which I have followed for six years now and it has allowed my students to do very well. This method, which allow students to give their own points of view within the confines of having to prove each point that they make in their essays is so successful that between us, Tom and I achieved some of Botswana's best results in '0' Level English Literature.

Shine - A story of hope for children (2008) (DRAFT)

2009-04-29T20:42:00.001-04:00

SHINE by Stuart Crouch

Nathan Barnabus Smedley O’Donnell

Nathan wasn’t popular. Nathan wasn’t cool. In fact, he was kind of a nerd. At least that’s what the other kids said, especially mean little Davy Brewster. The other kids in Nathan’s class saw his broken glasses, his knitted, home-made sweaters and his scuffed, old man’s shoes, and they thought like, totally, whatever... If you weren’t cool, if you were a nerd, then you didn’t matter. That’s how it seemed to Nathan.

Nathan didn’t say much. In fact, he hardly spoke at all. He spent his time avoiding people, as if he wanted to just blend in. His teachers thought that this made him difficult. They overlooked his good grades and his neat handwriting and his always-tidy cubby, and saw only a scruffy boy who had nothing to say.

But Nathan was what you’d call a dark horse. No, I’m not saying that Nathan was a horse! No, I’m saying that you never quite knew what Nathan was thinking at any particular time. You never quite knew what to expect from him. His grandmother was always saying that still waters run deep, and Nathan wondered what this meant. And, you see, that made him deep. Really deep. Helen da Silva could be Queen Bee of the spelling test, and Jamie Huckleson might know all his multiplication tables backwards, but Nathan, well, he knew all that and more.

You see, Nathan was a watcher. He looked, he saw. He observed, he noted. He knew the bus schedule from Monday to Sunday (and national holidays), and he had counted (and remembered) all of the trees on his bus route home. He remembered every word that every teacher had ever told him (useful for tests), and every image from every TV documentary he’d ever seen. If Nathan ever got lost, he’d be able to tell you that his full name was Nathan Barnabus Smedley O’Donnell, his birthday was May 29th at exactly 7.18 a.m., that his mother’s name was Jessie, née Sinkowski. He could reel off not just his own home phone number, but also his mother’s cell, his aunt Flo’s home and cell, the priest’s cell and the number of Mr. Pattinger, who lived at number 37. Yes, Nathan was a watcher and that meant that he knew stuff.

Still, being a watcher didn’t make him cool, and his only friend at school was a little snot-nosed kid, who hung around and sniffed a lot. But company is company and together Nathan and the little snot-nosed kid roamed the school and watched.

Their teacher, Miss Bouvier, wasn’t exactly what you’d call organized. She was a little forgetful. In fact, it was already December and she hadn’t learned everyone’s name yet. OK, maybe she’d learned the names in September, but since then, Jemima, Maria and Shauna and the twins Kate and Kim, had become a cluster of little ‘My Dears’, and Jamie, Juan, Jaime, James and all the other little boys whose names didn’t begin with the letter ‘J’ – including Nathan’s friend the little snot-nosed kid that nobody seemed interested in - were simply referred to as ‘That Boy There’. So Fifth Grade had been interesting for the children in 5B, and Nathan wondered if he was learning anything new at all. Miss Bouvier always seemed to be on the verge of saying something important, but then she backtracked and left Nathan wondering if she was a dark horse, too.

Back to the story. More especially, back to Nathan. This story will tell you how Nathan became a hero, and if you read carefully, you’ll see that being a nerd can sometimes be, well, a wonderful thing.

The Auditions
It was the third week in January and school was in full flow after the winter vacation. The word in the school hallways was that a big, all-singing, all-dancing end-of-year show was being planned. The word in Fifth Grade was that they were going to be the stars of the show.

The twins, Kate and Kim, were certain. “We’re going to lead the dancers!”

Mean little Davy Brewster was confident. “I’m going to be the handsome Prince!” Nathan thought that handsome was stretching the truth just a bit, but kept his mouth shut.

Miss Bouvier was positive. “I want 5B to be stars! I want you to shine for a night, just one night.”

The snot-nosed kid was sure. “I’m going to stand on the back row, behind the big kids,” he thought.

And Nathan? Nathan didn’t say a word, and didn’t think a thing. He wasn’t one to push himself forward, you see. Remember? Nathan watched. Observed. Saw. Noted.

Along came the day of the auditions and everyone was ushered into the hall. Mr. Decker, the music teacher, was looking tense and Miss Bouvier kept pushing the children from 5B to the front of the audition line. “You’re going to be stars, little stars, my 5B stars”, she whispered, as she hooked the arm of a kid from 3A or 4C and pulled them down the line, whilst the children from 5B tiptoed up the line. Nathan wasn’t sure that he wanted to audition at all. He didn’t want to speak in public, he had two left feet, and as for singing… No, Nathan was certain that being a star wasn’t for him.

Kate and Kim, who had been pushed by their mother onto more stages than they’d had hot dinners, looked like they were made to be stars. They had come to school that morning wearing matching red shoes that went clickety-clack wherever they stepped. And they were wearing matching drum majorette uniforms. Yes, these girls were ready. Mr. Decker started the introduction to their song on the piano and the girls seemed to swell before Nathan’s eyes. That’s a clever trick, he thought, and as the girls started to belt out the sun’ll come up, tomorrow! Nathan could have sworn that Kate and Kim were really grown-ups in disguise.

Follow that. Well, that’s exactly what Nathan had to do. He was next. Nervously he walked up the five steps onto the stage. Crack. Bang. Smash. He had forgotten that there were microphone cables everywhere, and he tripped. As his knees and elbow hit the hard, wooden floor, the microphone stand fell over. “Nice entrance, Dumb-boy!” stage-whispered mean little Davy Brewster. Kate and Kim sniggered cruelly. Nathan picked himself up, looked around blindly for his broken-but-taped-together glasses, and cleared his throat nervously.

“Twinkle, twinkle little star…” his voice was the merest suggestion of a whisper. Those people in the hall not within spitting distance of Nathan could not hear a thing.

“Project! Project!”, yelled Mr. Decker, in what was probably supposed to be a supportive voice, but which made Nathan cower, whisper and shuffle all the more.

“… how I wonder what you are”, Nathan’s voice faded into nothing. Mean little Davy Brewster, who had already had his audition, dancing and singing and miming and juggling like a pro, laughed, one of those loud, put-on laughs that are meant to hurt. The twins rolled their eyes theatrically.

“Well”, said Miss Bouvier. “Not all of us can be stars that shine. Some of us just…er… twinkle.” If it had meant to make Nathan feel better, it didn’t work, and at the end of the auditions, he picked up his schoolbag, tidied his cubby, walked through the main entrance of the school and got on his school bus.

Mr. Jack says important stuff
The next day, Nathan got off the school bus once more and trudged into the school building. You’d think that his schoolbag contained all the worries in the world, so weighed down did Nathan look. In fact, his were just the worries of your average11 year-old boy, who’d started life as a nerd. Head down, he wandered down the corridor.

“Ow! Look out there!” a voice cried testily.

Nathan looked up and saw Mr. Jack, the janitor, looking back down at him. What a way to start a day.

“Sorry”, murmured Nathan, “I wasn’t looking where I was going. Did I hurt you?” Nerd or not, Nathan never forgot his manners. Mr. Jack seemed to look at Nathan more closely, taking in the battered glasses, the home-made sweater, and the scuffed old-man shoes. Mr. Jack peered into the eyes of young Nathan, eyes that were already starting to well up with tears, and his own eyes softened. “This boy looks as deflated as an old beach ball”, he thought.

“Well sometimes it can be hard to know where you’re going”, said Mr. Jack encouragingly. “And sometimes you know where you’re going, but things get in your way. But sometimes, you should give yourself a break. Just look behind you, and see how far you’ve come.”

Nathan blinked. Wow. Mr. Jack was deep. Maybe he was a watcher, too. Nathan made a promise to himself to think carefully about what Mr. Jack had just said. He nodded, managed an almost-smile, and went on his way, looking in front to see where he was going, and glancing back to see where he had come from. Mr. Jack was still standing there, with a look on his face that Nathan knew was a grown-up look. He just didn’t know what it meant.

Astronomy. Light. Shining
Science the next day was cool. 5B were learning about the sun. Even Miss Bouvier talked like she knew what she was talking about. After asking the children of 5B what they already knew about the sun (“It’s yellow and hot”… “It’s really far away”… “It gives us heat and light”…), Miss Bouvier explained that the sun was a star and that stars don’t last forever. One day the sun would go BOOM and that would be that. The class fell silent. Mean little Davy Brewster broke the silence. “Yeah, and it’s gonna happen soon, like, next week!” Two girls screamed and Miss Bouvier struggled to make herself heard. The little snot-nosed kid looked around in wonder. He hadn’t been counting on going boom just yet a while.

“No, no, Davy! You know that’s not true. It’s going to be a long time from now. It’s going to be in…”

“Five billion years”, thought Nathan, who’d known this since Kindergarten. If the sun was a person, it would be almost middle-aged. If it looked behind, it could see yesterday and billions of other yesterdays, and if it looked ahead, it could expect another five billion years of, well, shining.

Miss Bouvier explained that the light from the sun that we see on Earth was, in fact, 7 seconds old. That’s how long it took for the light to travel all the way from the sun to earth, and to our little town, she explained.

“The light from a bright star, like our sun” she said in her this-is-important-so-I’m-speaking-slowly voice, “Is worth waiting for. It doesn’t come right away.” She glanced over at Nathan, smiled faintly and continued “But if we’re all patient, it will shine eventually.”

Now Nathan may have been a nerd, but he was also clever. He knew that Miss Bouvier had just aimed her words straight at him. He just didn’t know what she was aiming for. Maybe this was one of those dark horse moments, something that he would understand when he was older.

February turned to March and preparations for the school show continued feverishly. Nathan had been given a backstage job. Silent boys couldn’t be trusted to stand on the stage and speak. Or sing. Or dance. So, it was Nathan’s job to collect all of the props at the end of each practice and hand them back out at the start of the next practice. He wouldn’t have a job on the night of the real performance because an adult would be needed for this important job, but Nathan didn’t mind. From the side of the stage, you see, he could watch.

Life. And all that it brings
Just in case you were wondering, life is all about stuff happening and what you do when it happens. One of those moments was fast approaching in Nathan’s young life. Imagine the scene. It was the week of the show, and in class 5B…

“Now everyone, listen please”, Miss Bouvier wasn’t having much luck. “Davy Brewster, what did I just say? Well then! Please do exactly that!” Davy Brewster had not been having a good day and his life, at least the part of it that was happening right now, was running out of control. All day, Davy had been mean. All day, Miss Bouvier had been patient, but now Davy was holding the snot-nosed kid in a death grip and trying to steal his lunch money. Big mistake. What usually worked in the hallway or the playground, was clearly not going to work right in front of Miss Bouvier. Voices were raised, and soon the Principal, Mrs. du Pont, was in the room looking fierce, like a six foot tall golden eagle whose chicks were being stolen by a mean little boy. To cut a long story short, Mean little Davy Brewster was suspended. Again.

If you’ve been reading this story carefully, then you’ll know that mean little Davy Brewster was supposed to be a star of the end of year show. He was going to be the handsome prince. He’d always been destined to be the handsome prince. Except that now he had been suspended. Next day, Mr. Decker came to 5B looking for a volunteer to step into Davy’s shoes. Step up… no, it wasn’t Nathan. You thought it was going to be him, didn’t you? Thought it was going to be a happy ending? No. Sorry. Not yet, anyway. Wait a while and we’ll see. Who knows what possessed him at that very moment, but the little snot-nosed kid raised his hand, sniffed lustily, and said, “Me. I’ll do it”. And that was that.

A Happy Ending
Now it’s time for your happy ending. You see the little snot-nosed boy had not sniffed his way through life unnoticed. Oh no. Miss Bouvier had noticed the sniffing and Mr. Decker had noticed it, and finally even Mrs. du Pont had noticed that perhaps it was time for the little snot-nosed boy to be just a boy. The school nurse was brought in to look at him, and his mother was called. Finally the little snot-nosed boy was sent off to the hospital for lots of tests. This meant – you’re one step ahead of me aren’t you? – that he would be away from school on the day of the show...

While the snot-nosed kid was in hospital, trying to become just plain Michael Dimitrios, who knew his own name, even if nobody else did, poor Mr. Decker, who was looking increasingly desperate, and doing a good bit of sniffing himself, was looking for a star. Step up… Nathan. Was this an odd thing for a boy like Nathan to do? Not really. You’ll remember that Nathan was a watcher. And Nathan never forgot a thing. Nathan knew that he knew all the words to the show-stopping finale. He knew that he was supposed to enter stage left, go downstage slowly and end up standing on the very edge of the stage, bathed in the spotlight’s yellow glow. He knew that this was his moment to shine.

I don’t need to tell you about the night of the performance. You’ve all been to a school show. You know all about the homemade costumes and the red makeup, the wobbly backdrop, the poor kid who forgets his lines, hears the teacher whispering them and then finds his way again. You can picture all of the proud parents and worried-looking teachers. But maybe you can’t imagine the heroic performance that Nathan gave that night. Gold glows, silver glistens, but Nathan shone brighter than any precious metal that night. It seemed that he borrowed a little breath from everyone in the audience, and used it all to make his voice bigger and stronger than ever before. You couldn’t miss Nathan, up on the stage, and nobody could overlook him. And if you’d been watching closely, you may just have noticed that it took fully 7 seconds for the light in his eyes, and the sound of his voice to reach the very back of the audience. But it was truly worth waiting for.

The Big Moral of the Story
So, Nathan was the hero that night. He had become a star. Next year, he decided, when he was in Sixth Grade, he would speak a little more, and not just be a watcher. He’d push himself forward, just a little, and maybe take a risk or two. He wouldn’t try to be cool or anything like that. Being a nerd meant that he could do what he wanted, not what he thought everyone else wanted him to do. He wanted to look behind and see how far he’d come, and look ahead to all of the excitement that life could offer. But he would also try to shine. He would shine when he was alone, shine with his friends and family, he’d even shine around people who didn’t like him. Because, whatever Miss Bouvier might say, maybe some stars really could shine forever.

(2885 words)

Stuart Crouch was born in the 60’s and was a nerd throughout the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Nothing changed in this respect when the Millennium came around. His theory is that being a nerd can be kind of cool. He has worked as a teacher and teacher-librarian in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Caribbean and has taught hundreds of children, some of whom were just like Nathan Barnabus Smedley O’Donnell.

Seventeen Bags of Sugar (April 2009)

2009-04-29T20:31:00.003-04:00

Seventeen bags of sugar

One Sunday, every month, we visited the ancient crone that was
My mother’s grandmother. Vast in girth, this tiny woman in her curtain-fabric moo-moos,
Ruled her roost. I wondered why this kindly lady looked so hard, and was told:
‘She’s had a hard life, boy, so mind your manners, and
Sit nicely.’ With combed hair, in Sunday best, I listened and watched the solemn litany.

In my memory, every visit is the same.
She was nearing eighty, slower and more hunched, but always the same mean face,
That broke into a sunny, toothless smile.
And always the same old ritual. She looked at me severely, gathered herself,
And announced:
‘You are the spitting image of my brother, Edward…’
Edward, long dead, lost in Passhendaele, one of four brothers who died
For England. His sepia portrait hung above her chair.

Out came the best china, and my mother helped make tea, slice bread and lay cake
On doilies. My great grandmother, huge and solid claimed to ‘never eat a thing, these days’
But nibbled bravely, thinking this might be her last.

She died, one morning in her favourite chair.
My mother and her aunt were tasked to clear her tiny home, and in
The kitchen pantry found, piled one atop the other,
Seventeen bags of sugar. A life’s experience had taught her to
Stockpile while she could.

Clutching a picture frame, my mother stared at me, and said:
‘She had a hard life, son… You are the spitting image of
Her brother,
Edward.’

Summer Storm (2007)

2009-04-29T20:30:00.009-04:00

Summer Storm

That boyhood summer’s day I walked through fields and woods,
Careless of the time and place and brave, when
Bravery was hardly needed. Further now;
Up the crooked mountain ridge that monstrous then seems now
Inconsequential. Turning, I saw reflected in the haze
The anvil clouds, and taking care too late, saw all around me
Shades of fear.
Bravery turned to timid cowering, and I turned, too.

Do I exaggerate the moment then, when all around me
Chaos, furious, let loose? Passing ancient trees, bent and
Misshapen by centuries of pounding rain,
A child in fear, I ran, thinking to outrun the clouds,
Hoping to outrace the rain.
But no match for Nature’s wrath, I, seeing
Cottages below, hammered on the first door and was let inside.

There, panes of green-hued glass shook in dreadful, timpanic fury.
Sounds of horror came from the sky and
Time upon time, a flash of light threw
Bright sparks skywards and
White shapes twisted, forming shadows against me.

I am safe now.
Years have passed and I am no longer
Frightened of the rain. Adult fears replace the beating gale and
These, darker than those summer clouds, are with me,
Always.

Finding my Voice (April 2009)

2009-04-29T20:29:00.000-04:00

Finding My Voice

Stammering through early life
And shy of everyone around me
I worried myself through start-stop, fragmented
Conversations, until one day, I found that
Watching was more fun, and took less effort.
Withdrawn and timid,
I watched the friends around me
Play and fight and I learned right from wrong through
Their experiences.

At my teacher’s desk,
My curled, left-handed scrawl
Drew praise, and I, bashful under kind scrutiny, became a recorder
Of my narrow boyhood world.

At nine, it was time for a Christmas show, and standing like miniature
Soldiers around the piano, our new, austere schoolmistress
Made us sing. Out loud. Alone. Paul Geary
Muttered a near-silent twinkle, twinkle, and Hazel Lee
Whispered a hushed school hymn.

My turn came.
I had watched TV concerts,
And seen that singers seemed to draw energy from
All around them,
Swelling to fill the room with sound.
I did the same, and borrowed a little breath
From each of my school mates. Sound filled the school room:

‘Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war
With the cross of Jesus, going on before’

Our new teacher, pounding out God’s music,
Turned in awe, smiling for the first time, and at Christmas,
I sang alone in front of gathered and expectant mothers,
The morning sunlight shining on my face,
Into my stammer-shunning heart.

Cradle to Grave (April 2009)

2009-04-29T20:27:00.000-04:00

From Cradle to Grave

As an infant, you softened my granite heart, gurgling in your own
Child-speak of half-formed words, blinking at the light, and
Gazing out at your tiny world. Your innocence brought you many fleeting friends in
Supermarkets, doctor’s surgeries, and grassy parks; secretly,
I reveled in their cooing faces,
Knowing that you were mine.

And then you left me. You were grown, a boy of barely four, with school tie, satchel
And polished schoolboy shoes.
I longed for four o’clock, yearned for each weekday afternoon,
For your return and the sweet smell of little boy. Every day you left me
For a little longer, and traveled one step further away.

At eleven, you became suddenly, overnight, a little man. You were
Serious, distant, thoughtful, selfishly independent. And though I saw you through a
Father’s hopeful eyes,
You were less like me than I had hoped. A stranger.

By fifteen, you were sullen, a noiseless presence, everywhere, yet nowhere.
I craved for the faraway indifference of your eleven year-old self, longed for the little boy
Who filled the house with chortling, boyish sounds.

And then you left me. You were gone, at nineteen, dead, too far from
A doctor’s healing hands, off abroad, pining for adventure and a
Young man’s dream. And I?
Left with memories of that little boy,
From the cradle to the grave.
My lips murmur half-formed words, and
My granite heart is crumbling.