Gratitude List (For Sam Kerr)

This poem is dedicated to the young Glasgow City footballer Sam Kerr who inspired me by doing something special one friday night without even knowing she done it. In her tweet on self care Sam made what was in my opinion without doubt the most intelligent and creative comment I’ve heard in the whole of lockdown. This was a comment which had a very beneficial impact on my mental health as it really changed my way of thinking. In that tweet Sam said we should make lists of the things we’re grateful for each day because we all have for things to be grateful for so before I forget here’s some of the things and people I’m grateful for and one of them in case you haven’t guessed is Sam Kerr. I’ve titled the poem Gratitude List I hope you enjoy the read

Gratitude List (For Sam Kerr)

Im grateful for my health
I’m grateful for my friends
I’m grateful for not needing to pretend
about who I actually am
I’m grateful to be able to express myself
in verse and in rhyme
in whatever place and time I see fit
I’m grateful that people listen to my words when I’m on stage
I’m grateful for the ability to rage
or to speak gentler words of kindness and hopefully compassion
I’m grateful for mistakes I’ve made that I’ve had the nerve to call fashion
I’m grateful for being allowed to live in a country
which at least in part cares for its citizens
I’m grateful for the ambitions I’ve fulfilled and those I’ve yet to achieve
I’m grateful for the faith I actually do believe in
though it can be shaken from time to time
I’m even grateful for the security I get
when my flatmate is watching those American TV crime dramas
so beloved by her that drive me demented
I’m grateful for the fact that this leaves her contented
when I’m out at Celtic Connections
seeing friends I’ve known for years
I’m grateful for my smiles
I’m grateful for my tears
as I said I’ve lot of things to be grateful for
and one of them is you Sam
you see you made think in a different way
I think what I’m trying to say is
that tweet you posted will have sown a lot of seeds in people’s hearts .
now as I sit in my flat I’m looking back with thanks
as I recall the Friday night
you got me thinking about writing gratitude lists
to remember the places and friends
we so often take for granted or at least we did
before this nightmare made us thankful for the good times
we hope we will enjoy again when things return to normality

© Gayle Smith 2020

Letters

This poem illustrates one of my most vivid memories from my childhood which streched in to my teenage years. In it I recall how my maternal gran loved receiving letters from her sister in Canada. However it also relates a piece of family history which my gran shared with me which to this day is never widely known about by any surviving relatives and wasn’t even known to her youngest daughter namely my mother. The story tells not only of my gran’s joy at receiving the letters from her sister but the heartbreak which lay behind her move across the Atlantic. I’ve given it the title Letters I hope you enjoy the read

Letters

In her eighties my gran received letters

communication from a sister

who had left for Canada

six decades earlier

at a time when a Scotland was more puritan

than the country we know as home

my Gran never thought of emigration

when she talked of Chrissy

she said that her mother claimed

she had been banished to the colony

to save her soul from Satan

and the shame of having a bastard wean

in a good protestant family

in a privite moment she said

her dad had wanted his lassie to stay

but his ‘wife’ was having none of it

boasting that in her Londonderry

good protestants didn’t have sex for the fun of it

they did what they did to produce obedient children

loyal to kingdom and crown

knickers never came down

for thorns to be planted in the garden

this lack of compassion

hardened my gran’s heart against her stepmother

who she always viewed as a cruel vindictive woman

and the worst example of humanity

she had ever known

you would have hated her she said

as she read the latest letter to me

my gran had family she would never see

except in photographs sent with the letters

I know how much this hurt her

she told me the stories

she would never share with others

not even my mother

judging her youngest child

as too conformist to cope with the emotions

some family secrets would raise

I remember one letter from Christmas 78

it came with two packages

one of which my gran said

I had to open away from prying eyes

it was a surprise present for the girl

my gran had told her sister all about

the granddaughter born a boy

I enjoyed opening my parcel

which contained three pairs

of the most ladder proof tights

I’ve ever worn

in her note my great aunt said

there are some things a woman knows without saying

that need no explaining

girls and women talk in code

if they want to swap stories

they keep hidden from others

now I know what she meant by those words

I’ve used it myself to protect others

in letters and private chats

now in a time of the internet

my gran would have loved Instagram

but feel that Facebook has replaced the art of letter writing.

© Gayle Smith 2019