father

Carrying my father home

/ A. Gouedard / 3 Comments

Far heavier than I expected
and the size of an old sweet jar,
opaque plastic, black lidded.
Thank heaven it wasn’t transparent.
I could not have gone on like that.
I carried my father’s ashes
through the streets,
past the church and the chapel,
past the pizza parlour and meaty kebab shops,
under summer trees and fuming traffic,
everything poignantly normal.
We didn’t walk often together.
My father preferred his home.

I was sweating from heat and emotion.
Such a hot afternoon it was.

Lost Watch

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I lost my father’s watch in the sea
When I wandered about on a beach.
It’s well that it rests there,
He wanted an ocean burial,
But the sea was too far out of reach.
We didn’t have time for arrangements,
Time flew by too fast,
but now he is rested at last.
My family heirloom lies on a sea bed of shells,
Corroded by rust,
Informing the fish of the turning of tides
As it drifts back and forth in the currents
Showing it silvered face
round as the full moon, in it’s season.
I lost my father’s watch in the sea.
He would be happy,
But time seems to have stopped for me.
Like a screen on TV,
Gone blank.

Falling House

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There’s a chair I will never sit in.
There are unread books by his bed.
There are things that I said
That I wish I said sooner,
Long before he was dead.
I am glad this house is falling down
It’s a fitting tribute
To the skill that kept it strong,
The skill of a father who’s gone.
Light spills through the cracks in the floorboards.
In the creaking timber I still hear his footsteps.
Let it fall, let it fall, let it fall.

The windows hang on frayed breaking ropes
Worn by the shifting years.
Now they won’t open at all.
The lighting rod, well earthed,
Serves its protective purpose.
The house is weathered by sunlight and storms,
Its wires inextricably tangled.
It’s hard to let go of memories.
It’s hard to let go of mortar and bricks.
It’s hard to let go of buildings.
It’s hard to let go of a father who’s dead
While his voice speaks clear in my head.

I Never Knew

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I never knew how true love was
Until after my father was gone
I never knew all the things he did
The care and kindness he hid

I never knew so many things
I drifted through life unaware
I thought I knew where I was going
Until my father was gone

He tested me
He challenged me
He was always there
The rock in a stormy sea

I never knew he was proud of me
Until those last years of Sunday leisure
How can you measure anything
Until it’s over and gone

La Marseillaise

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My dead fathered wandered from his bed

complaining of the cold.

His bed, too empty,

needed my mother for warmth.

I told him, then, return to your bed,

warm it ready for her.

 

My mother had fallen down.

I lifted her, naked, onto the marriage bed

and ran through the dark night house

seeking her fresh cotton gown.

 

Children ran through the corridors,

laughing, hiding and seeking,

when they should have been sleeping,

but I let them play

 

When the blackbird sang in the morning

we went out to feed the horses,

the beautiful, lovely horses,

their warm breath steamed in the air

as the night watchman strolled away.

 

The courtyards smelled of new-mown hay

in this city of ancient archways.

The theatre people were waking up

and lighting breakfast fires.

In the hall, behind closed doors,

the band tuned up to play.

They played La Marseillaise.

 

I walked through the city that morning.

I smiled to myself, at the gift of imagination,

and the comfort it always brings,

as the starlings deafened my ears.

 

 

my father

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it was not until i found myself swimming alone

that i realised he was my rock

taken for granted always there

though i had watched the life source dim

with regret and compassion

 

there is no other rock out there

in the endless sea

now i see why he tried to teach me

to float to dry land, each time i swam off

flailing my arms about

 

Autumn

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I sit in the window alone

above the darkened garden

and the lamplit streets

that lead to the far away hills.

The lamp behind me

casts my own shadow down

onto the empty lawn.

 

A passing stranger looks up,

hurries on and is gone.

A father carries his daughter home.

She droops on his shoulder, asleep.

The only sound is the traffic

and a party and laughter,

distant, along the street.

 

The moon is hidden by billowing cloud.

The stars up above are unseen.

Looking down to the gloom of the garden

I take comfort

in only the smallest things –

a frail light that shines on apple tree leaves

and the sweet, gentle autumn air.

 

 

A Welsh Voice

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The mists, the mountains, cloud topped giants,
houses hung beneath the roads,
the mysteries of Cader Idris,
the bearded lake, Arthur’s stone,
a throne beside the glassy water
hollowed rock o’er grown with moss,
the leap of silvered salmon in the river,
the sheep, the lanes, the wayside markers
in the wall of wild flowers blooming,
by granite seat of ancient Bards,
where people gathered
hearing story roll from lips and memory.
All these things we saw together,
wandering in the wilderness of Wales
with my father, as a child.

The village streets where women gossiped,
the cobblestones and chimney pots
enchanted drifts of wood-smoked air
the clanging chime of book shop bell
as my father lead me to a gloomy room
walled with shelves.
Reaching up above my head
he handed me Dylan Thomas
a poet he had never read.

In bed that night a door swung open
with all the chimes of stream and meadow
louder than the bookshop bell
ringing out in word and image
words delicious in my mouth
the sounds, the shapes, the sensual pleasures
wrapped in beauty, thoughts profound,
laughter, love, the lowing cattle
driven home at eventide.
The orchards and the apple trees,
the night above that shines with stars.
The chapel choirs sang out across the valleys
voices raised in harmony and hymn,
the moaning echoes of the wind in grass
the sighing singing of the sea,
short lives lived
parading slowly to the grave.