I wrote this poem when my son, Sav*, was 10. I was trying to formulate my feelings about the variety of heritages which he carries but which are mostly unremembered. Also to compare the close, eager Christianity of Africa and the Caribbean with the often-chilly faith practised in emptying spaces across the British isles.

As you can see, Sav is grown now. He will be 22 next month. My feelings of gratitude haven't changed about him; nor towards the strands of warmer faith to which he unknowingly connected me. Parents both know, and cannot know, their children. We can grasp much less of their history, or their future, than we wish. The same goes for our religion. I just hope British Christianity warms up a bit.

A Mixed Race

No. Before my hot, bright son was born,
I warmed my pale heart and hands
at hearths of slanting light on lichened stone,
on narrow faces, old and still
as henges mirroring my own,
nodding washed-out, half-awake greetings.

Much has refined us pale, proper people,
weathering us down to passions half-believed, urges half-felt,
God half-perceived, bread half-smelt.

Yes. But now that hot son lives.
He carries manicured market-town and 
village-green combined with the seething blood
of pogrom and siege, slave-ship and synagogue,
trees in typhoons, thrashing.

Look at the wide smiles, broken nails,
the whole, brash, smack and tackle of his
foremothers’ believing.
Before, I bore cloisters, crofts, cream-teas.
Now I must bear more than these.
Now I am mixed, in feeling.

©Lucy Berry

*Some readers might remember Sav from the Single Mum column which ran in Reform during his childhood and early teens.

Lucy Berry is a poet, a mum, and a minister of the United Reformed Church. Her website is at www.lucyberry.com and she's available to perform, preach and lead workshops.