BLUEBELLS

BLUEBELLS

for my sister

It’s bluebells time.  I find myself once more

In England at this season, knee-deep in them,

Strolling through woods near Harpenden

With my son, Matthew, who’s now fifty plus,

And his young daughter, Alice, sixteen,

Already a young woman; and Joe and Georgia,

Twins, children still at thirteen, romping

Up ahead. 

       And I’m remembering those days

When we two, as children, would ride our bikes

Down that steep, narrow hill toward the airfield

Where we watched Spitfires sputter in to land

On their return from battle.  Here, the woods

Were a magic carpet, blue and green; we’d pick

Great baskets full of flowers to bring back home

To our mother at the Rectory.  Primroses, too,

And cowslips…

                             And now, not five days later,

I’m at your bedside in the Cheltenham hospital

Where your friend brought you, late at night,
At your request, after the pain became too great
To bear; and where they took you, to the disbelief
Of all who knew you, into surgery, to operate
On what proved to be inoperable.;And yet
I find you in good spirits radiant, even.
We are both—let’s say the word—both old now,

You at eighty, I at seventy-eight.The memory