I was too young

But they tell me he held me high
and let me choose the peach from his grafted tree
that, when it ripened, would be solely mine.

And they tell me , when we walked together
I too clasped my hands behind my back,
and walked like him to the tent shows come to town.

I was young

I remember I heard him say
That boy should learn to swim .
so he took me daily to the pool and at its side
he watched me learn .

I used to sit near by his old cane chair
as he leaned his elbows on its battered arms
and rested strangely, hands clasped with thumbs hooked onto brow,
sleeping exhausted by pain and the long day’s mining shift.

And I still remember his trembling hands, blue scarred from coal
opening my Christmas gift to him :
a rough-wrapped calendar on green cardboard,
with pictures of a yellow-coated foxhunt crudely pasted on --
my kindergarten crafting badly made-- as he asked -- Is this for me ?

And I sat by his bed in the hot, green-painted room
while the thin and trembling fingers worked the sheet
and he pointed down the bed and told me how he saw
a small white lamb that gambolled by its foot.

I was young.

That was the last I remember of him.

They never told me when he died .