lost-poem

LOST.

I grieve for you in the cold quiet of winter

My absent child, my long lost son

Warming my hands over dying flames, frost covered smouldering clinker,

By the wood where icy streams run

Through the shrunken sedge, and barren fields

Stretching for miles, empty of meaning.

The landscape like a worn photograph yields

Your tremulous smile, then nothing.

Here, you ran with startled steps

Through the yielding sheaves, yelling with surprise,

Chasing indifferent spiders, and discomfited birds

With hatred in their pebble pool-dark eyes.

Querying awkwardly spoken words, small

Tenacious fingers that caress and clutch

Every passing object, loudly chuckling, wisely playing me for a fool

A silly father who loved too much.

On the anniversary of your leaving I required solitude

Partnered only by memory

Away from familiar crowds, the booming, barking fusillade

Of the present day commonplace urban itinerary,

Where only the crackle of snow

And the fleeting trajectory of birds

Distracts my slow

Marshalling of comforting thoughts.

The cottage where we lived haunts the shallow glade,

A shrouded ghost swaddled by the half-light,

Positioned squarely like an old man, its cladding beginning to fade,

White branches like dead-fingers that gleam in the night.

In the closet are your dust-sprinkled toys, a yellow plastic duck,

A cheap skateboard, ancient video games,

A guitar you never learnt to pluck

A chess board on which you pulverised my endgames.

 In the preserved furnishings of your bedroom

Your school work gathered into stacks

Barely visible in the gloom,

Our life together in disorganised packs

Denoting year and level

Development and academic achievement,

If any, (but I mustn’t once again cavil)

Indicating, even in your earliest years, a specific bent.

Standing on the mantelpiece, propped up against the wall,

Are brightly coloured, polished pictures

Of you. Plump, blonde, agreeably small

Dancing, standing, jumping, grinning, absurdly wistful mixtures.

A bitter echo resonating from the shadows

A cold thought darkening into memory

The spectre of your voice disappearing in the meadows

Having left all of us! Having left me!