Dad

1.

You carry me on your shoulders 
through the dark 
and explain to me 
the stars. 
The owl in the old oak 
calls in the night.
You chuckle, joyful 
in that mysterious bird. 
One day you received a stuffed fox 
and, to everyone's horror,
set it up in the hall. 
You wanted to put tiny 
light bulbs in its eyes and make it see.
Later the owl came 
to sit above the grandfather clock 
striking the hours 
with its hoots.

When I was six 
and staying at the big house, 
the Blue Room I remember, 
you came and slept in the great bed
next to mine. 
Before dawn I lay awake
a little sick or something, 
you took me into your sheets 
and together we watched 
the light come.

Dawn, never so mysterious,
never again so filled with rapture,
your explanations of the rising sun,
the globe that spun, the east-west
meaning, time and openings 
of day and night revolvings.
When the sun came 
striking the gauze curtains 
and filtering into the room 
I was one with the planet's turning 
lying in your arms.

2.

Long after the uncertainties began
 I still went to church with you.
 It seemed there was nothing else to do
 and anyway there was love.
 Stumbling hesitatingly through the Creed
one day I heard you say
"- in so far as it can be believed "
and my heart leapt
letting go all fears of losing love,
thrilling me with the vast courage
of that great doubt.
I sang the hymns so high
into the rafters I think
the tiles moved.

JHC 25.12.93