Sum Of All I Needed To Know

My mother told me that
I had to wear a hat
out in the sun. It was fun to
wear a hat until I noticed
that no-one but me
was wearing one.

My father sat upon a
favourite broken chair
to drink his tea; we used
to pee as one, he
and me, behind the
shed, it seemed
so ordinary yet I never
got to see the rest of us
relieve ourselves
back there.

My mother brushed my
hair for years, she said I
must look nice
to go to school – it is a
rare pleasure to have
your hair so carefully
brushed each day,
and going to school
somehow too
became a pleasure.

When I think of the simple
way they taught me things
when I was small it’s hard
to stop a grin, I learned they
loved me true and that
that was the sum of
all I needed to know.

– And these days I wear
a hat in the sun.
© I.D. Carswell 2007-02-02