Inevitable

that we both remember childhood with the same
memories of teachers, classmates and playground games.

We both come from South London dandelion roots,
splashing in puddles in tatty plimsolls  - not boots,

two friends in a gang of urchins, some lost, some found,
roaming stairways, playing fields and waste grounds

of the decades following the war, a time of liberty
and revolution: Led Zeppelin, Joni and hippies.

In teenagehood, thrown together once again,
we chatted on a crowded underground train.

Inevitable that we spent decades, wondering what became
of each other, whether you were the same

cheeky street kid, with your cascade of auburn hair,
the lanky mischief maker, always up for a dare.

Inevitable that it took a letter to a local rag, a phone call
and a visit to prove nothing much had changed at all.

And here we are, living our lives together,
ready to face the great whatever.

Kim M. Russell, 8th June 2023

It’s Thursday and time for us to Meet the Bar with Laura at the dVerse Poets Pub, where we are exploring when ‘We’ writes poetry.

Laura begins with quotations from Bonnie Costello’s book The Plural of Us and a poem by Anne Bradstreet. She says that, having just celebrated her daughter’s wedding, she is “conscious yet again of how in bonding with ‘other’, the first person plural comes to the fore. ‘Me’ becomes ‘We’ and arguably, the success of any union lies in the compromise between the wants/requirements of ‘I’ and ‘We’.”

I didn’t know that today is National Friendship Day, but what an excellent reason to consider the bonds bound up in first person plurals.  Laura’s examples are an extract from Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s ‘Friendship after Love’ and David Ignatow’s ‘We’ to inspire us to write poems about ‘We’ as a pair, a couple (not a group).

33 thoughts on “Inevitable”

  2. Your bonds go far and deep Kim – beautifully wrought in this poem when friendship became marriage
    “splashing in puddles in tatty plimsolls – not boots,” – such an evocative line
    [still listneing to Led Zeppelin too!]

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    1. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that we were at infant school together and played together in the playground and around the flats where we lived. It’s even harder to believe we found each other again,

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  4. We (My Beloved Sandra and I) don’t go back quite that far (ie only half my lifetime), but there’s certainly a bonding between us similar to what you’ve written about so beautifully here, Kim. Wonderful work. Thanks.

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  6. You two were meant to be together. There has to be a thrill in the heart to know it. Just wondering, are you both in the top picture and if so where are you and where is he? I think I know just want you to confirm. Nice to see pictures of you two together over time in the other pics. Lovely poem.

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    1. Yes, I’m in the top row, the little blonde one on the left, and David is third on the left in the row below me. We were never far from each other at school , walked to school together, and ran around the blocks of flats on our housing estate together. We went to different high schools, I was more academic, and then I moved to Germany.

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      1. ❤ ❤ All the more endearing to see you as children then as adults and realize the bonds you developed that have kept you connected through time. It gives me hope. Kim, I also noticed something else about that pic: you resemble Joni Mitchell!

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  9. Plimsolls takes me back to younger days when my London cousins visited. Here in T&T we say sneakers but talked of plimsolls😊

    Much💚love

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    1. I haven’t seen any children wearing plimsolls, not for a very long time, but they were what we wore! Thank you, Gillena, and much love to you!

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  11. I can’t help but wonder if friendship is not a lost institution, like newspapers and record album cover art — all treasures buried in time — friends don’t have the same chance the deepen and depend the way we did roaming out there until our parents hollered for us to come in for dinner. Killer final couplet.

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  14. And here we are, living our lives together,
    ready to face the great whatever.

    Love it Kim! You are one of the lucky ones to be married to a childhood sweetie!

    Hank

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