Sisters

I feel lucky to have three sisters, and even luckier to have just spent three days at the beach with them.  The one day of clouds didn’t seem to matter in balance with the glorious sunshine and clear air of the other days.  The cottage Chris was renting looks over the marshes of the South River and it’s a short walk to the beach.  We were surrounded by the best of being on the water — the snaking blue of a tidal river contrasted by green marsh grass, and the hiss and tumble of waves breaking white on the sand.

Spending time with my sisters walking along the beach and the river, sitting on the deck or the porch talking, cooking and eating and cleaning up, playing Catch Phrase and talking about books and movies and memories and writing, I experience only the blessings of having sisters I’m close to and can connect with.

But I guess I didn’t always feel this way, or was willing to explore other experiences of my sisters, or was just expressing the usual adolescent angst when I wrote the poem below. It was among the treasures in the album and box of old photos and papers my parents gave me last weekend.  If I remember correctly, I wrote this in junior high school.  Maybe I’ll write an update today.

To My Lovely Sisters

Down by the telephone
Lovely and fair
Sits Chrisie my sister
Covered with hair

From the tip of her nose
To the crown of her head
It hides all her beauty
And makes her look dead

And up in the bedroom
As fair as the first
Sits my next sister
Jeanne the cursed

She yells and she screams
Til her throat must be sore
And continues to prove
She’s an obstinate bore

And then there’s dear Meggie
As fair as the rest
Who’ll run from her work
At that she is best

She cherishes her candy
Which she eats all alone
And if someone takes some
She lets forth her loud groan

And then there is me, too
Of all I’m the best
I’m kind and I’m loving
And never a pest

So now you have met
All my great sisters three
But kindest and loveliest
Is the great me.