Reading:
Poppy Day I nearly threw the envelope away. Another year, another Poppy Day. Among the PR stuff they’d sent a wooden cross On which to write a name. With a thousand more the same This would make a poppy Field of Remembrance. At once An image came into my mind: a photograph in black and white Of a World War cemetery in Flanders, taken from a height And stretching for miles, shrunk down to Lilliput, A boxwood ‘installation piece’ of tragedy Six inches high and set upon a lawn clean-shaven. At first the thought seemed trite, mawkish even. But you could select whichever capital city You wanted from the nations of the Kingdom. I chose Cardiff, the place from where, nearly eighty years Before, I took an ancient steam train up the Rhondda. To my surprise I found myself into tears. Another letter’s come. So now I know his cross Is there: Plot L 5053, though that’s no use to me. For I’m too old to go and view my puny tribute To the memory of this man I scarcely knew. And at Cardiff Castle too, noble seat of the Marquis of Bute, Coal-owning millionaire and foe of everything he stood for! Yet I’m glad his name is part of this sad metaphor of loss. Lord God of hosts, be with us yet, Let we forget - lest we forget! Now the tears have gone and I’ve sat down To write a poem that just might put balm upon This open wound inflicted on my childhood: The death of my father. And yet for all those years I’d rather Think of anything - of academic life, Of painting, now of poetry Than what happened to me In nineteen forty-three. A small boy stands in Penrhys Cemetery He’d come that day to say farewell To one who’d died when he was far away. ‘Your father would be happy to know That he is lying here’, said Uncle Will. ‘On the tops there’s always clean air And when it’s clear you can see the sea.’ ‘You must be grown up now And look after your mother. You are the man of the family.’ A preacher’s consolations of religion Drift on sheets of slanting snow. A far-off whistle from an engine Shunting coal trucks tells of other lives All going on oblivious, in a valley far below. But what could I know of all of this? I could think one thing only. That ceremony Was nine days since I’d had my birthday When I’d reached eleven. On my next I’ll have made it to the age of eighty-seven. All those years without a father! At some point in those long decades I would have lost him anyway So why those bitter tears today? They came because I never truly knew him. I’d been sent away three years before But even so I should have known him more. My tears were a repeat of those I’d shed some forty years ago. A friend who tried to help, had asked me If I thought it was usual to know So little of a father. ‘Seven years old when you were sent away Is not that young. After all, Most people…’ He got no further. I broke down and wept a waterfall. ‘Seems like to me everything is wrong Seems like to me the day’s is twice as long Seems like to me the bird has lost his song Since you went away...’ Paul Robeson, on our wind-up 78. His favourite. So why didn’t I know him more? Decades on and in my mother’s final years I once asked her this very question. ‘Well you see, he had to work so hard That every night when he came home And had his meal he’d go upstairs to sleep So he could get to work next morning early. That’s all there was to it really.’ I remembered the relentless drudgery Of working people in those pre-war days ‘Hush! Your father’s tired!’ that phrase so often heard. And for a moment I believed her word. But then the doubts crept in. So tired always? Never a moment To spare to cherish his only son? No time to place his hand On my shoulder to say, ‘Well done!’ Or ‘Bad luck!’ or some such? And then that one big doubt That lurked behind them all: Did he not love me? Or not much? Who was he then, this man my father? Was he harsh? Or was he kind? Did he mind what I did at school? Whether I worked or played the fool? What pleasures might we have found To share when I grew up? What might we have enjoyed in conversation? Could raw paternal feeling have ever bridged The gulf wrought by my education? A fly loses grip on the window pane Falls, gets airborne with an angry buzz Re-attaches and resumes his climb Only to fall again and then again. A photograph of him in army uniform Is all I have to show me how he looked At that time when I was an evacuee. I gaze at his unyielding face - He was standing to attention - And I try to catch his voice: Some nuances of intonation That I might remember him. But what greeting could there be From those few fading patches Printed in the middle of last century? Sometimes I see myself caught say, in a mirror And I wonder if I’ve grown to be like him. Not much I think. In his picture he looks small, Not the childhood giant I recall. In any case To think that I could fill his space, Or even sillier: to think I could assuage Some childhood guilt (had it been my fault?) By striving for success, was the saddest error. No son could fill his father’s place, not then or ever, No matter how strong or brave or clever. You must make sound and honest works With what creative gifts you have Then honour such memories as survive With what is yours to give. On summer evenings in our woodland Blackbirds start to call as sun goes down, Back and forth across some marshy ground. A last, ecstatic song-burst before stars Signal bedtime. Cadences of liquid sound Fall on my ear, messages I can never parse.
Peter Lloyd Jones 