For My Dad.

My father wore black or grey trousers

Which hung, unstylish, from a thin waist.

He was comfortable, with skin that held the sun.

He had breathed unspoiled air

And could speak of the feel of fieldmice

Running over his leathery hands

While he gently tended a garden.

His eyes were sunk from a hard-travelled life.

He died without ceremony,

Leaving no gap in the history of the world,

But a great hole in mine.

About 1970