Three Points Of The Triangle

I remember some years ago I wanted to write a poem on the theme of a triangle:

it was a time when my daughter was very ill.

She wasn’t ill all the time, but she had episodes, and between the episodes

she was pasty, unbearably translucent. It was not an easy time.

I wanted to write a poem about the symbolism of a place from which I could see three churches.

I used to take her to her grandparents (I forget now if her grandfather was still alive at the specific time I’m thinking of),

and on the way there I passed through three villages, and I thought about the churches of these three villages,

facing each other across the countryside,

and I thought they were like us, me, my daughter, and her mother,

three points bound together.

The threeness of our family seemed very important to me at this time,

because it seemed, especially when my daughter was very ill, that we were the only three people in the world.

But I could not write that poem, because when I think about it now,

there is no single spot from which those three churches are all visible.

Suffolk, August 2010