On My Own Poem by Diana van den Berg

From the whispers
of my first breath
in years long faded,
except, of course,
for my best friend God,
(though I am not sure
in what later years
He became my best friend) ,
I did it
all on my own;

in hospital after my birth;
I don’t remember what I was told
was wrong with me then
and I really don’t care;
whatever it was
didn’t recur
otherwise I would have known;

in learning to read before I went to pre-school,
my mother being a teacher,
with a big, though non-agressive, THE
on the back of my bedroom door
because that was the word
I struggled with then,
and it must have worked
because I can read THE now,
all on my own;

in the dolls only fit
for being taught
because I didn’t know
about children and babies
and family love,
but they were the best-educated dolls
I ever met
in all my pre-school experience;

on my tricycle
racing around the garden;
in the red racing car
of Peter
my five-year old
next door neighbour,
first behind him,
then – oh joy!
behind the steering wheel
all on my own!

with my beloved Woofie
given away
so soon
because my father
didn’t like animals
and so he left me
all on my own;

wearing that beige heart-shaped stone,
lucky-packet ring
that Bennie
another neighbour gave me
also when I was about five –
it was such a pretty ring
and oh how I loved it;
I wonder when my mother
threw it away;
I never would have;
though perhaps I was persuaded
to give it away
amongst the toys
I was taught to donate
once a year
“to the poor children”
though I am wondering now
if that was really the destination
of my gifts
though I am probably just being cynical
as it probably was where they went
as we took a few children
from the local children’s home
to the beach one day every year;

in the ballet competition
for five-year olds
that I didn’t practise for
(though my best friend
worked at it every day
while her mother
played on their grand piano) :
and the pianist asked me
what music she should play
and I said anything because
the music would tell me what to do
and Robert Louis Stevenson’s
Child’s Garden of Verses
that I won for my performance
and have still
(though the cover is a little loose)
and all of its pages have been read
and loved
more times
probably than you have taken breath;

in the mango tree
with the branch
for me to sit on
and that short broken one
for my feet -
I can see it now
and would give my back teeth -
does anyone want my back teeth?
to swing down from that foot branch
as I did every day so many, many years ago
all on my own;

in my made-up ball games
with rules I adhered to
with law-abiding determination
all on my own;

in my imagined adventures
that nobody ever knew about,
some I spent
sitting in a large cardboard box
with milk and biscuits and a book
and exciting dreams
in the front garden
all on my own;

even in games of my imagination
with friends from time to time,
and though whoever it was
entered into it whole-heartedly,
I doubt they saw what I was seeing -
like swimming through
a field of long golden grass
on a chicken farm
with a little black girl
who probably had never seen
a swimming pool
or the sea;
and the friend on whose wooden gate
we rode our horses wild and free,
though I think she just swang
her half-gate horse open and closed
in fun co-operation;
and so,
in essence
I was
always
and still,
playing
all on my own;

in the poetry
my mother
and father
read to me
ah yes, I have that -
and I thank them both for that
and their different favourites,
though I can’t believe
I wouldn’t have met
and fallen in love
with poetry
at some or other stage,
but it was good
to be impassioned by it so early
and I still hear my father’s voice
reading Hiawatha
and my mother’s
reading Sea Fever;
here where I sit
all on my own;

though it would have been nice
if my mother hadn’t turned her nose up
at what I wrote years later;
which would have suppressed my poetry
if it hadn’t refused to be suppressed
and it flowed all these years
from my pen
all on my own;

and it would also have been nice
if my father had wanted at least one child
especially as I was
all on my own;

in seven years of marriage
for at least one of which
I practised my French
on my husband
but he didn’t know
as he didn’t listen
and so I was
essentially
all on my own;

in my beloved children who grew up
and left the nest
and my daughter who
hasn’t spoken
a non-poisoned word
to me in about twenty years
(except for three sentences
in an email
about five or six years ago
on my birthday) :
and my son whom I see once a week
and sometimes a little extra
when I need something fixed,
has his own family now,
and is very busy giving
very passionately
to various communities
and I am proud of him
though wish I had more time
to commune with him
and not be
all on my own;

so, except for my dog and my cat
and a renter in the outside rooms
whom I hardly ever see,
and my forest which I adore
and my horse and other cat and other dog
in Heaven,
I live
all on my own;

in long nights of reading poetry
to cats and dogs
who hang
on my every word
and let me know
that with them
I am not
all on my own;

in dark midnights on the piano
with doors and windows closed,
with Beethoven
and Dvorak
and Grieg
and my beloved Chopin
and others,
in broken music
playing
as well as I can
all on my own;

in nature reserves
with my favourite companion,
me,
so that
before it was unsafe to walk alone in them,
(except for a small nature reserve
that takes only an hour
to walk its path) ,
I could wander
at my leisure,
drinking it all in,
and loving it all
and stop to wonder at
and commune with,
whenever I wanted,
a leaf or a rock
or an insect
or a flower
or a giraffe
or a mongoose
or the panoramic-horizoned richness
of an eco-habitat,
that God displays wide-skied,
all on my own;

in learning which friends and acquaintances
are real
and which are fake;
and weaning myself
away from those
who would blur
my vision
and stunt my growth
and threaten my spirit;

but in all of this
I became
my own
best friend
(after God)
and I know my worth,
my weaknesses and my strengths,
the good in me, and the bad;

I have few friends
and very little family
but the real ones of both
are valued
as drops of rain
in a scorched gasping desert,
though even of these,
few know me at all,
though many think they do,
and nobody knows me
as well as I do;

and as shocked as you may be
to hear this,
I like me
all on my own
in every sense of that,
though
it would be nice
if
I
weren’t.