I wrote this – thanks to a flat white coffee and a dog walk – on the morning of National Poetry Day in the UK: Thursday 2nd October 2014. The theme was ‘Remember’. I meet a lot of elderly people through work and the quiet dignity of one couple earlier that week inspired this poem.
I remember electricity in our hands –
Sparks of fire twixt fingers twined –
With footfall fleet in ceilidh dance
as love locked us, laughing, in spinning reel.
My love, do you recall?
I remember winter’s kiss of snowflake, fall
On cheeks flushed hot neath veil
And your eyes with water filled
When my step rang on stone of stern kirk aisle.
My love, do you recall?
I remember a tight-lipped man, come home from war –
My trusting boy with wounded soul, weeping “Move on.”
“Move on!” you cried, til gentle tilling of the land and lowing of the beasts
Taught you to smile again.
My love, do you recall?
I remember tears running down your smiling face,
Speechless, cradling our child in your trembling arms
Promising inside to never let her go,
To fill her life with love and dreams.
My love, do you recall?
I remember your awful coat – ripped cuffs and pocket-gravel –
How with wry knowing smile you spoiled your faithful dogs,
The trees we planted and stood back and watched grow
And the garden we nurtured together and the seasons that passed.
My love, do you recall?
I remember our friends – those who sailed into our lives,
Anchored up and stayed, still dearly loved,
and those who lingered a while, loitering,
then travelled on beyond our realm, lost.
My love, do you recall?
I remember the chattering excitement of building dreams
For hope and happiness shared.
I remember sitting midst insect hum at dusk
our bench, our place, our quiet time to talk. To plan. Together.
My love, do you recall?
I remember the sneezing fizz of champagne,
Spluttering of words and family smiles
At wriggling grandchildren hushed
And glasses, high clinking, toasting sixty years of our love.
My love, do you recall?
I remember tears when first you said goodbye
On our bench, at dusk, while still you knew me, knew you.
I still bring you here. But it is to the silent stranger sitting between us
That I tell my memories of a life we once knew.
My love, do you recall?
Please, if you remember anything,
remember
I love you.