FOUR YEARS

YEAR 1: WEBMAKER AND FRIENDS
Spring. Deep sleep in the early hours
jarred awake by the creak-shriek of wood
clinging to fast-embedded nail.
"Who's there?" through the window garage-ward
Silence. Return to sleep.
Morning. Every horizontal garage plank removed
placed, transformed into a little house in the one solid corner.
My small son, smile wavering uncertainly, says,
"It was Wood–den Man, Daddy"
I scowl, feign anger
and smile behind my hand.

Summer. Lightly dozing in the warmth
roused by a shatter-crash of broken glass
splintered on resisting stone.
"What's the matter?" towards my den
"Nothing, Daddy" Continue doze.
Later. In my den a pull-along truck
piled higgledy-piggledy high with locks, catches, handles.
My son, serious and very sincere says
"It was Lobster-man, Daddy"
I growl, feign anger
and smile behind my hand

Autumn. Catching up with admin. tasks
disturbed by a shuffle-scuffle of trainer-shod
feet across the bedroom floor long before bedtime.
"What are you doing?" up the stairs.
"I'm tired, Daddy". Return to work.
Bed-time and my son's room is a mass of wool
woven to an intricate impenetrable web, access for one.
My son, guilt chasing glee, says
"It was Web-maker, Daddy"
I grimace, feign anger
and smile behind my hand.

Winter. More unconscious than asleep
Forced awake by the clamour of the telephone
insistent and I know, I know, I know
"Yes?" a barely audible whisper
"Intensive Care. Come quickly" I run.
In the ward, Wood-den Man, Lobster-man
has followed Web-maker into his cocoon
never to return.
Anger is replaced by grief, unfeigned,
and no smile now.
--------------------------------------------

YEAR 2: ABOUT FACE
Morning over

The noon sun
squats cold as curdled cream
in a yoghurt sky
powerless to stay the scalpel
of a surgeon wind that flays each facet
of my face and thrums defenceless sinews
exposed and bare.

Escaping the seeping wintry chill
I sink exhausted in a nook of rock
shocking red in a washed-out world.
But enough of this:
this is not the time for purple patches
though the patch is pale and muddy mauve
with lowlights dirty-grey.

This is a time
for ritual exhumation of memories
for assessments of circumstance
and interment of grief.
It is the anniversary of my son’s death
at the picnic-point we both loved.
Here at the Edge he snapped into place
the final pieces of the puzzle
of his father’s life.

Morning over

That vibrant summer of vivid colours
and revelations of violent changes
when three driven children
sought the secret – as they thought –
of the missing years and the scars upon my face.
They’d found a photograph, late teens,
with smooth skin, symmetrical, unmarked
in contrast to their father’s present face:
a mess-mass of centipedes hiding in hair
above a lop-sided lip and tip-tilted chin
alive with a multitude of wan millipedes.

Scarred.
But how, they wanted to know
and why and did it hurt bad
and when and where and why again.
So they learned of the grind of shattered
glass on bone, of many extra mouths
gushing blood, of friendship and its price
- one hundred stitches more or less.
And what is more
they came to know
a man who wandered where he wished
who worked enough to make a meal
and slept in many different beds
with many different girls
in rooms, in tents, copses and mountain ferns.

They met the man with the endless chat-up lines
who swirled the girls with the whirling Waltzers
and tended bar better than Tom Cruise;
who hoisted heavy barrels of beer into bond
and sweated heat-ridden buckets on the blast;
who entertained the children on the Camp
and gave old ladies a welcome touch of youth.

They learned of fights and friendships
of protests, profanity and passion
of scribbled pictures and scrawled poems
thrown away or sold for pints of ale.
They saw their father then
was a different man to now:
secure, settled and warm
like an old fire with flames within.

Morning over, then,

Questions answered
my satisfied son smiled his thanks
traced the tributaries on my face,
hugged me, rose and turned
and gazed with fascination at the squirrels
sequestered in the trees.

Mourning over, now.

-------------------------------------------

YEAR 3 : PROMISES
Be spare with promises,
circumspect: these prim and pretty 
parcels of pledge
are wont to squat egregiously
and chase your eyes,
or else slyly hide and swell
with newly-harboured hopes
Take care, be spare, avoid delay;
be ready for delivery day.

Son-spotted, this pannier of promises
gathered and gleaned
while panning for nuggets among
the spoil heaps of old songs:
“I will show you morning
On a thousand hills
And kiss you
And bring you seven golden daffodils.”
The pledge is made
I will shoulder this promise pack.
I will deliver.

A problem, son posed,
in this sad and cynical age:
“Is it OK for boys to kiss their Dads at ten?”
It’s OK, more than OK, at ten,
It’s just the same, and more, at twenty
It’s still fine at thirt …
                 at thir …
                 at th …

There will never be time enough for kisses
Between the string of sunrise hills
and the sorry bunch of daffodils.

The frosted earth heaves
And the treetops chime in the cold ringing dawn
A wisp of weariness drifts by
Apprehension curls in a corner of my mind
the haze-shrouded morning segues
to promised peaks of cloud-sundered hills;
Memories of majestic magisterial mountains
conspiring in silent communion
with mist-soaked dawn dappled dales

In this landscape of misplaced modulations
Across the shapeless steppes of my mind
I sense within the psychic wilderness,
pollen-borne and putrid,
another self chasing the whispers and scents
of long-extinguished lanterns.

Last-first seems here appropriate
in the final distillation
of yellow-headed hopes
a promise of daffodils delivered
a pledge redeemed and yet
I am burdened:
bound by promises
I will never get to make.

----------------------------------------------------

YEAR 4: VACANT PLACES

Bleed in the sink:
Mother’s midge-whine words
Reverberate and ricochet
among the vacant places
of my stone-still skull: shocked
and disbelieving eyes fixated
on a sliver of flesh
atop the little mound of mash
stained Rorschach-red.

Mother grips my sliced thumb tight,
Plunges my pain to numbness
just below the tap’s freezing flow
and slots the fresh rinsed sliver into place.
Over her shoulder
She directs my sisters to eat, eat,
As the wind and bind of bandage
Hides this unseasonable horror
From sensitive sight.

A fresh plate for me
In my pristine vacant place
Half mother’s mash
And sprouts from sisters gleefully given;
No meat, thank you,
I have had a surfeit of flesh.
Sisters, once again all smiles and squirms,
Enjoy their meal. I ingest the food
And digest along with mother’s words:
In future I will tend my pains in private;
I will hasten, and when hidden,
I will bleed in the sink.

This lesson learned long ago:
To face a vacant place
At a crowded table
Among the festive family gathered
For the merry meal.
I will shake myself
Free from fear of a phantom at the feast.
I will make myself
Defrost my rue-rimed face
with a semblance of a smile
Or, failing these,
I will take myself
Aside and hurriedly hide
Behind a mardi-gras mask
my Gorgon’s grimace and,
in silent solitude
to save the tinsel from the toxin,
I will bleed in the sink.