Not Yet My Mother
Not Yet My Mother
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Not Yet My Mother
by Owen Sheers
Yesterday I found a photo
of you at seventeen,
holding a horse and smiling,
not yet my mother.
The tight riding hat hid your hair,
and your legs were still the long shins of a boy's.
You held the horse by the halter,
your hand a fist under its huge jaw.
The blown trees were still in the background
and the sky was grained by the old film stock,
but what caught me was your face,
which was mine.
And I thought, just for a second, that you were me.
But then I saw the woman's jacket,
nipped at the waist, the ballooned jodhpurs,
and of course the date, scratched in the corner.
All of which told me again,
that this was you at seventeen, holding a horse
and smiling, not yet my mother,
although I was clearly already your child.
Copyright © 2005 Owen Sheers. Reproduced by permission of the author c/o Rogers,
Coleridge & White Ltd., 20 Powis Mews, London W11 1JN
This poem was selected as part of the BritLit project. To find out more about BritLit visit our TeachingEnglish site.
Comments
Yeah, I remember looking at my and my mom's old pictures when we both were about 7 years old, and we looked absolutely identical! Even now mom keeps saying that when she looks at me she's like looking into a mirror, but some 30 (or smth) years ago...
yes , i agree with you completely. but do U have a felling of as time goes by.
as the time goes by, we grow more and more alike
i t's great , but im regard that i have seen my mom and my father 's photo once, in that time , my father is 20 years old , he is so similar with me , now he is becoming older ,so i think i will try to finish all of my father's dream .
i saw many photos of my parents when they are younger, but i don't think they are like me, but i think that my little brohter is like my moher wnen she is a baby
When I saw some photos of my parents when I was only 3 years old I start to laugh and I could not stop, then, my mother start to laugh, too, and then, all my family.
I don't look alike any of my parents, so when I was younger I thought I was adopted because there haven't been any photos of me as a baby.
When i saw some photos of my parents i didn't know who those persons on photos was my mother or my father , because they were so different from now.... :P
I think like o-ymeri
Hi everyone. I really like this poem and I was really interested to read all your comments on this subject. I realise as time goes by that I look not only like my mother, but also like both of my grandmas! I see photos of myself and see similarities with old photos of my dad's mum, who I never really met. When I was younger I didn't like the idea of looking like my granny, but now I think it's nice to have that link with my past, and my family history. Who do you resemble in your family? Do you like looking like them?
Joanna (LearnEnglish Teens team)
yes i see my parent's album and my father look like me
Nice poem...I sometimes feel that I look like my mom used to a long time ago...
yes i see and i look like my mother
nice poem...yes i see & I'm a mixture of both..my parents..
Yes, I saw. I don't look like my father at all, and mother-well, she has a similar smile and eyes, but I still find myself different to her.
I like to be unique and to not resemble of any of them.
I look almost the same like my father's grandmother. I couldn't believe! We have the same hair, the same eyes, the same look, face, everything... Even I wear the same hairstyle like her. Once one friend of mine thought it was me on the photo, and it was my grandmother. She was beautiful and gorgeous, so I don't regret at all of being like her.
I take after my father I´m a female version of him,I even walk like him,we have the same character and we both named the same and even more incredible our birthday is in the same month just one day of difference He tells me I´m his birthday present!
I've seen.They slightly looked like me.
I saw many times even I also saw a photo when my father was a baby bt they don't look like me lols
YES I saw..