Winter Swan

A Time To Keep

Having spent some time on my own in a place loaded with memories, being met by winter swans in the twilight, I remembered the poem I wrote in May 2008. It was for my father.

A Time To Keep

There is no wind today
And time stands still.
We need these hours
You and I,
And God doesn't blow away the minutes.

Away from the house, away from the sea,
We stop and look at flowers,
Searching our memories for their names.
I show you the spot where I was kissed
For the very first time, by my first love,
And surprise myself in doing so.

This morning in May
It is you and I and no one else;
Not a soul when we reach the harbour,
Just the lone voice of a bird,
Calling through salted sunlit air.
I take out the camera and in movie mode
I capture not the bird, but its song.
And then I find your face.
Smiling.

We walk across the beach by the bay
Where once, more than forty years ago,
I rowed the boat without a sound
At dawn, water dripping off the oars,
As you pulled out a sea trout.
Today we see two swans,
Standing on the surface of the sea - mating.
God slips a bit here
And takes the hand off his stop-watch.
We laugh when it's too late to film.
Swans don't take very long.

And all the time we know
That something is not right.
Our eyes rest on the evening sun,
Still high over the islands,
When you say that it is fine.
You have had a good life.

The clock starts ticking as we leave for town
And a week later the hospital calls.