In Sympathy and Memory

Poems written in memory of loved ones.

​

Heritage

My grandad, with his northern vowels,

‘Let’s ‘av a luke’, ‘bring me that buke’.

Child-me thrilled at the way he spoke.

My grandad, on his daily strolls

‘cross Cookham Moor to the churchyard.

My grandad, the musical lad:

church organist, and taught my dad.

Now my sons caress the keyboard.

My grandad, who made pilgrimage,

and brought back stones from Galilee,

has come into his heritage.

​

Gladioli

Spear lily, I’m sorry I didn’t guard you better

after your gestation in the earthy border

from the hailstones of the summer storm

brewing all these weeks of heatwave-warmth

and the hands of my young sons,

who have the gentleness of children.

I have tied your broken necks to stakes

that I shoved into the soil too late,

probably piercing your hearts; all the while

above the ground, your blooms unfurl.

I have gathered your flowers from the grass

and placed them in tear shaped vases.

                        *****

When I was new-born my grandpa grew glads

and sold them, cut flowers, to England.

The regiments of bulbs that I remember

are the iris that they grew much later.

The gladioli were remembered like an in-joke

by the adults. I never knew if they were staked

or cut down before the flowers bloomed,

or if they were packed in too tight to swoon.

A growers’ greenhouse glass prevented against

thunderstorms and stalk-snapping gales.

I think my grandpa would have loved to see my

clumsy attempts at growing you, gladioli.

​

[First published by Dwelling Literary, May 2021]

​