A Back End Winnow

Reflection by Susan Nicolson

Dr Susan Nicolson is a general practitioner based at the Centre for Women’s Mental Health at The Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne. She is Honorary Fellow in the Department of General Practice and in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Melbourne. Susan was awarded her PhD in Psychiatry in 2012. She has completed Postgraduate Certificate Programs in Infant Parent Mental Health jointly run by the Royal Children’s Hospital and University of Melbourne. She is a Member of the Royal College of Physicians in the UK, a Fellow of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, a Diplomate of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and a member of the World Association of Infant Mental Health and of the Marcé Society. Dr Nicolson's clinical and research work involves attachment-based support of vulnerable families from diverse backgrounds, including pregnant and parenting adolescents and their infants. She is a faculty member of NBO Australia, the national training program for professionals based at The Royal Women’s Hospital and is a master NBO trainer in the international NBO organisation.

Whenever I read this poem, I am transfixed by the way a mid-night stirring of the wind, of a man and of his still-sleeping children, made love expressible and gave fear a shape. I cannot but believe in the potential in everyday moments in the lives of the families we serve, and the power of harnessing them therapeutically in our work.

The author, already a doctor, was a friend and mentor to me when I was studying medicine in Glasgow in the mid 1980s. He posted a copy of the book to me in Australia when he published his poetry in 2010.

From the Collection ‘A Back End Winnow’

By Ian Balfour Kerr

Dear Children

Startled and suddenly awake, a window rattled by a wintry wind

That creaks the rafters seems to stir and to contort the very

fundaments of this old house, I step barefooted

Down the carpet of the hall to check, compulsively, the kids.

Still deep in sleep, that deep sleep of unknowing innocence,

I watch and stoop, smell, touch sweet skin and hair,

In turn they breathe aloud occasionally stir a limb, oblivious,

But I awake, alert now, almost grey-haired, ‘forward look’

And anxiously anticipate our turn of life, dear children,

Know this that I love you now and that this moment will

endure.