Poem 255
Old Bill has some problems staying anchored in time due to weight of lived memory or encroaching dementia … the voice calling him is his mother’s at first but segues into one that’s more like his own, reeling him in to remind himself which end of his life he stands at … there are similarities to Poem 147 …
( I like the summer images of corrugated iron, the futile box-stick-and-string bird trap, the feeling of heat and muffled sound behind the dunes, and the blue-packed ocean … )
The Old Man
For a thin moment it was summer somehow burning in the centre of the tangled grass the washing shining across the line corrugated iron humping against its nails Billy the old magpie cocked an eye through the loquat tree at the box the stick and string knowing what boys are birds shouted after days of rain the cat put all his paws up and baked his tabby belly Billy there was a steady beat of heat back behind the dunes in the bramble throat of the beach as if the sun had melted wax into his ears and sound was passing somewhere above him a gorse pod spat open and he climbed the leaden side of sand breaking into the day the passage of air and the breezing blue-packed ocean Billy Billy Billy that was eighty years ago