1 PAPER BOAT slowly slowly like a paper boat turning in the wind on a glassy pond slowly slowly like a huge ship spinning in a boundless sea slowly slowly like a slurred boom on the edge of heaven slowly slowly you are going your way I cannot reach you. I modulate my voice speak twice as loud; I let you fall asleep and do not intervene I watch you slip, slip slip away into the infinite firmness of age slowly slowly you are going and I cannot stop you; what will be left will be the echo of your voice saying just give me a hug son slowly slowly you are turning slowly slowly you are going away ST MARYCHURCH, DEVON. JULY 2022 2 HIM do you see him? I do. I see him so well, now, as if cataracts have been removed, or darkness lifted, or Bartimaeus met in town, betraying the sight of men like trees, walking. for there he is, down this thought and down that, down every thought; lurking inescapably, stale as water that will not drain away, blooming like an unkillable weed on my perfect spotless green-as-life wildflower lawn. yes, there, there he is, the bastard uninvited guest, the foul changeling morphing, little by little bit by bloody bit into the host. at first, he was shockingly rare; a parent here, a distant friend, a wise and gentle witch; a clutch of gorgeous aunts. now he comes like a commuter bus, like a monstrous industrial vacuum cleaner, like a tsunami mutilating with its froth of white-brown brine, gathering the broken limbs of far flung homes a vortex, churning, sweeping far inland to claim a close friend here, another there, mother-in-law, a mad and lovely herbalist, another aunt. plucked from their stops; and others, always others, waiting in further stops, huddled under the flimsy rooves of bus shelters as if they could ever evade this acid rain. how do I tell him to f**k off to f**k off to the furthest bitter boundaries of the universe, to the ends of time, to the black mysterious ether bubbling in unimagined territories, the godless limitless lands no maps depict; how do I tell him to go, to go, and not return; to f**k right off when I hear him now, when I hear him now, inside of me? ST MARYCHURCH, DEVON. MARCH 2023 3 RAVEN those most I know those noises go; and mad minds draw the raven ST MARYCHURCH, DEVON. APRIL 2023 4 OUR TIME no longer do you worry about what next to do you are submerged by sleep like the waves of Lyme Bay we almost hear a mile away, Hope Cove, Thatcher’s Rock, rolling, one upon another you have lived so long, so bloody long putting one foot before the next. I sit beside you. a terrible rain beating on the windows, feeding you chocolates when you wake; playing you music – the old tunes of the war, of Calcutta, of Bill and Ben, Glenn Miller, the ragged random paths through almost 100 years of life ST MARYCHURCH, DEVON. APRIL 2023 5 PAPA you are so frail now. your body twitches with random movements fingers, knees watching sometimes alive, stubbornly alive hanging on, in case something important has been forgotten, and needs to be done before you go. ST MARYCHURCH, DEVON. APRIL 2023 6 GOOD it is not reciprocal this good, you know - as if it might return to coat you back like a bee with pollen ST MARYCHURCH, DEVON. APRIL 2023 7 ALREADY already, yes already I am already saying goodbye. you sleep much more now hears little eat less. you cling to your bed like an iron sparrow clinging to its tree almost, you are not here. almost. tomorrow or if not tomorrow, then someday soonish you will have gone, died, buggered off; left this planet, left me. and that will be it. no amount of negotiated language can put us both back breathing the same air in the same room. and that, of course, will also be when my own oxygen starts slowly to run out too. ST MARYCHURCH, DEVON. APRIL 2023 8 BUT FOR but for your shoulder’s briefest briefest twitch you could be dead. beyond the half-closed curtains and the open window, parakeets call from mango trees; crows caw; an unendable burr of grasshoppers summons from smooth green lawns: and here, too the ordinary thrill of country noises hum, and echo, and chatter, and splash. at night, foxes bark, owls whoop; and baa-baa bleat the sheep in their long sad day’s lament. oh yes, daddy, yes: of course you are here and now – here and now, here and now, still as a corpse, deaf as a shell, weak as an infant; in pain, in fear, tired, tearful, fretful, finished, forgetful, utterly forgetful – but here, now. come, let us think beyond - beyond this quiet room, this modest, unaffronting room where, just beyond your window any country could wait. come, let us think beyond - beyond this kind and cautious building; beyond the kind lanes of Devon and the buildings rooted in red earth; beyond the ceaseless misty drizzle, the hedgerows high as chimneys ...
