They Didn'T Know Poem by Diana van den Berg

I have never wondered
who I am,
nor needed
to find myself,
nor wonder
what the meaning of life is.

From as early
and I mean early –
as I can remember
I knew exactly
who I am.

However, my parents didn’t.
Granted, they both fed me
good poetry and classical music
which indelibly soaked my soul
and my mother taught me
to do the right thing
and what the right thing is -
ironical that.

They didn’t know
I touched the velvet
of green hillslopes
with the fingers of my soul
as we drove by.

They didn’t know
I bounced on clouds,
nor that I flew with birds,
nor that I understood melancholy
as deeply as I do now,
nor that I stroked it’s beauty
into the music of composers
whose names I didn’t know,
nor that I would gaze
at the print of Miss Innocence
on my bedroom wall
in her yellow dress and hair ribbon
where she sat just showing the tips of her barefeet
under the spread of her dress,
nor that I delved deep into the impressionistic smudge
of dark silhouetted trees far behind her
and made up stories about the woods.

My parents didn’t know
I danced dreams,
only that I won RLS’ Child’s Garden of Verses -
for an original ballet performance, when I was five years old -
and I still have the book today.

They didn’t know
I made up a ball game for one
to play on the back verandah
with complex rules I never broke.

They didn’t know
I had my favourite branch of a mango tree
on which I sat and dreamed,
with another short one for my feet.
I can see it now.
It was under that tree
that I received my first kiss...
I was four or five, I think...
It was from Peter
from next door.
He had a (toy) car – a sportscar red one –
it seated us both,
but he let me drive it on my own too.
It is, to this day, one of my most favourite cars...

Bennie, from round the corner,
gave me my first ring.
The stone was beige and heart-shaped
and came from a lucky packet.
I loved that ring...

No, my parents didn’t know me,
nor my five cousins whom I hardly ever saw,
nor my friends, nor my boyfriends,
nor my husband,
nor even my children,
though they think they do.

But I know me
and I like me
and that
is what counts
the most
... I suppose...

(27 March 2011)