My brother is sixty today. We grew up in deep countryside in England, in an era that is a different country. We both now live in Scotland, through what has felt for us both like a period of alienation.
But humanity is universal, however expressed. Ich-du is I-Thou even in Gaelic.
France was once divided by language, by how the peoples said “yes”. The land of Oui (pays d’oy) and the land of Oc (pays d’oc).
Yes is yes by any name. So, my exercised up brother Pip, here is a poem for your birthday. From Squeak. X
Pip was the lad,
Sqeak was the boy
hoi and poloi youthfully goy
Tick-Sixty-Years-Tock’d
The Oys became Och’d
But Squeak said to Pip – just enjoy!
Does that deep countryside still exist today? We live in the New Forest, Hampshire where we can still escape into a small but substantial wilderness.
Lucky you ! Most of my extended family live in Hampshire. I was brought up in Rutland, which alas is now denuded by Dutch Elm Disease, flooded with a lake and the home of London weekenders ! Still, we can still have the deep forest in our heart ?
The Elms, what a loss. But did you know that Rutland was voted the best place to live in England….despite the lake…… But perhaps having the deep forest in our heart is even better.