Kate Meyer-Currey

To the manse (Dunbar 2019)
 
Two shared pasts:
My mother’s; mine
Double layered 
Memories 
Felted in kinship
Woven tight 
Like plaid; 
Dark squares; 
Navy, bottle green
Are longer past; 
Solid, foursquare
Like the manse’s
Enclosing walls;
Set back from
The present world;
Modern additions 
Jar, but blend,
The yellow, black
And white lines 
Of road-markings
On the street where 
We have parked,
Almost furtively;
We don’t want them 
To notice us; we just 
Want to see the 
Manse; home of
My mother’s childhood
Holidays, in Dunbar
Where we went 
Together when I was
Little, in the Seventies,
Visiting Auntie 
And Uncle; dislocated 
By retirement
From its enfolding shelter 
To a low-set pebble-dashed
Bungalow, by the machair
Flat to the dunes
On the fringe of the town
Near the golf-course,
Where we took headsquared
Walks along by red crumbling cliffs 
With raucous kittiwakes 
Squawking like bagpipes 
Squinting at the Bass Rock
With its guano icing, from 
Boat rides round the bay.
Trips to Eyemouth; storming 
Tantallon’s sandstone ramparts;
North-Berwick or Preston Mill
Commemorated on tea towels 
In Auntie’s tiny kitchen; 
Taste now the butterscotch tang 
Of milkshakes at Grecco’s
Or scraping out condensed-milk tins 
To make tablet; flavours still
Tingling on my tongue 
Of shared ‘don’t tell your father’
Sweetie-shop indulgence; 
(A secret between Mum and me).
Exploring the tiny garden 
Immaculate with flowers
Nooks for gnome-statues 
And my childhood memories 
To hide; hearing Auntie’s 
Clucks, exclamations; 
Exhortations to keep 
Our English accents 
Muffled from the neighbours 
Despite the thread of tartan 
Blood that runs deep 
In maternal veins
A family music only we hear. 
That was my Dunbar;
A pattern repeated
From my mother’s past;
A small-scale replica 
Of the Manse, my Auntie’s
Crowning glory; her 
True heart and home. 
Childlike, we peek 
And peer together 
Over new-built walls 
And fences to
Our younger selves;
We see lawns laid 
Trim and neat;
Box hedges, tidy flowers
Striped by paths 
For lolloping dogs
And toddlers staggering 
To mothers and aunts;
Flopping onto
Tartan picnic rugs 
Overseen by windows’
Benevolent guardian 
Eyes; peer through 
The nets and there’s
A table laid with 
Crisp cloth and doilies
Awaiting high tea 
With drop-scones,
Traybake; recipes 
Handed down 
By sweet-toothed time.
Notes also drift 
On the air; Handel 
On piano, diligent Auntie 
Practising for services;
Or singing old songs 
In her warm, low mezzo 
Echoing back to 
Other choirs; trained 
And led by musical aunts 
The rising lilt of Gaelic 
Evoking tides of the 
Western isles; or the 
Organ keeping measured
Lowland time; the fabric
Of a Scots family:
We still hear the sermon 
In uncle’s pulpit diction 
At children’s service 
‘Lead us not into Drem station’
We follow this commandment 
Even now; glinting beyond 
The town is the chilly sea 
Where Mum learned to swim
Fighting the cold with thermos 
And ‘chittery snacks’; towel 
Scratchy as the sand 
Between her toes. Recalling 
Storms and floods of the 
Time the land was drowned 
And rivers ran red-streaked
With the hue of rowans
That skirt the harvest fields
This summer in East Lothian;
Our past is backed by ramparts
Of time, Edinburgh crags that
Look down on the Royal Mile
And the castle; the Tattoo is
Another family tradition where
Dancers interweave like
Our shared lives; I look up
At the ranked seats 
I see my mother; she sees me:
This is the home of all our mothers 
The pipe-skirl stirs our true blood. 
 
 

Kate Meyer-Currey was born in 1969 and moved to Devon in 1973. A varied career in frontline settings has fuelled her interest in gritty urbanism, contrasted with a rural upbringing. Her ADHD also instils a sense of “other” in her life and writing, whether folklore feminism or urban myth. Her chapbook County Lines (Dancing Girl Press, forthcoming 2021) juxtaposes these realities. Other poems include “Family Landscape: Colchester 1957” (Not Very Quiet, September 2020), “Invocation” (Whimsical Poet, forthcoming), “Cailleach” (SageWoman, forthcmoming) and “Dregs” (Seinundwerden, forthcoming).