Blackberry Way

 

Blackberry Way

I am old –  groan noiselessly

when she announces in pebble smooth tones,

‘Grandad, we’re coming to your home.’

 

Whatever shutters that exist

inside the head descend in whatever that is –

tiredness, maybe the need to be alone,

flushed thinking usurped by another’s design,

because you need time to take the time.

 

Or energy, where did that go?

10 years ago I was scarcely this slow,

and before that, watched my children grow,

taught them to read maps, trace contours

with fingers, choose safe roads, avoid detours.

 

At the swimming pool, I clowned it up,

although I’m not sure my heart was in it

I did my trick, with the shades and stick:

the blindman, tripping over the edge, falling in,

looks of disapproval; laughs from them.

 

Later, on a ramble down to the stream

with bribes of some-day, one-day ice cream,

3 of us counting flowers, cataloguing colours,

making super-slow progress

due to defective shoes, wardrobe issues

trying to find rainbows within undergrowth

and above the sun shining like it’s summer.

 

And there were blackberries – along the way –

our lips purpled from picking at splays

in the thickets and thorns.

 

So when my little one looked up

from his bowl of grub

children's menu in a tacky traveller’s pub

just off the A30 at Fraddon –

spooning pasta and peas inside at mach speed

and says: ‘Grandad, more please,’

had I ever in my days seen such joy,

or life in the eyes of a young boy?