By Heart

I learned to live when I was young.

I guess that’s not surprising?

The sap of life welled up in me,

the fluid kept on rising.

But then I shared a sudden death

with you – where are you, Mother?

My father all is gone from us

and there will be no other

who cradles me in his strong arms,

who calls me by my name -

“Johnny, let’s hunt beetles!”

I will never hear again

down by the Ashdown Forest,

near our cottage that he built,

where I grew up with butterflies,

and now am racked with guilt.

And yes, we hunted beetles,

and yes, we found a few.

We put them in a matchbox 

Now I remember his last words -

they linger to the core

“Hello, my darling!” is all he said

and nothing, nothing more.

I carry these words, off by heart,

as if they’re something new.

Every evening I recite them,

and think, and think, of you.

There’s only me that writes this thing,

You, Father, are long gone,

but love wells up inside me here

on and on and on.

And so I come to question why,

when all is said and done,

why don’t we simply finish off

what we have just begun?

But I still have that matchbox,
I open it whenever
I think of my lost father
and when we were so together.