Father

She shines when she speaks of you,
As if cooling at a mountain stream,
Counting her blessings like diamonds,
Or rousing from a lover’s dream
Where banns of love are read.

Your life and its important story
Not often for the hearing now.
Thirteen of you on the Shankill,
Rough spot for the churchy boy,
Knowledge flaming in his head.

And that legendary four guineas
Loaned from Canon McKelvie,
With which you sat matriculation,
Won a place at the University
And gave it up for others’ bread.

War presented back a world,
Beyond provincial imagination.
Giza, boundless searing desert,
The blazing constellations,
The planes, the bombs, the dead.

Again that quiet advancement.
The oak leaf*, offer of commission,
Puzzles for the welder’s son who,
Unapprenticed in ambition,
Took the salesman’s grind instead.

In the typing pool Mother sparkled,
Netted by your chestnut voice,
Sequestered in that stainless lilt,
The Masonic, the chapel’s choice,
The river where your spirit fed.

And when she is gone, what then,
Who sings you alive with love,
Your memory dipping out of sight,
High on the horizon like a dove,
While we remaining hold the thread?

* Mentioned in Despatches is a military award for gallantry or otherwise commendable service. If awarded, the serviceman or woman is entitled to wear a silver oak leaf on the ribbon of the corresponding campaign medal.