TAE MUM on her *!~%th birthday
I wrote this in a rush, hoping to finish it for my mother's birthday party, but, sadly ran out of time. Mind you, it was a good party and Mum did appreciate my Dad and I hiring a bagpiper for the occasion. It might help to explain the final verse if I just mention that, for her birthday, I gave her four garden animal ornaments: an owl, two squirrels and a pig
Dear Alice, Mrs Griffin, ‘Bunty’,
mother, neighbour, friend and auntie,
this entertainment's cost us plenty:
a piper's sum!
but even were that all our bounty,
you're worth it Mum.
For once we're going to make you sit,
'cause normally you niver quit.
You dust and dig and cook and knit
and walk twa dogs,
and wash both cars and a' my kit
and both the bogs.
Forgive your son his blathering
to a' this merry gathering.
To speak aboot your mothering
takes quite a nerve.
less lucky sons a leathering
might well deserve.
But grant a little time and tide
for tribute to your husband's bride,
and though this page is white and wide
I'll make it brief.
There's nothing on the other side
(see overleaf).
When you were born in late July,
a lion prowled across the sky.
Now, Mother, lions canna fly,
but I'm no lyin':
' twas lofty Leo wand'ring by -
your astral sign.
But Leo's not a fitting beastie
to praise a lassie, braw and tasty.
He's not renowned as one's sophisti
-cated chum.
A lion can be awfy nasty.
That's not you, Mum.
A brief resumé of your life
begins in Mark Inch up in Fife
where braw and bonnie bairns are rife
and canny too,
and there grows many a sweetiewife.
Oh aye, that's you!
To count the years since ye were wee
would tak a braver man than me.
Today you look like 43,
but let's be frank:
in foreign tongues it's LXV
or soixante-cinq.
The world went sour when you were ten
and war stole the glances of young men.
Six years it lasted - ach, poor hen,
you bloomed unseen,
then saw the world grow sweet again
when sweet sixteen.
But I am no biographer
and if you'll grant a metaphor
your life to me's apocrypha.
It missed my eyes
and you might call me Lucifer
if I told lies.
So, I'll just have to skip some years,
'cause too much bending of the ears
is sure to end in yawns or tears
or something worse
and, anyway, it's not Shakespeare's
but just my verse.
Now, did you know that '29
was the serpent year (the Chinese sign)?
And yesterday, in bright sunshine,
came three beasts more:
and owl, two squirrels and a swine.
Oh, sorry - four.
July 1965