april *is* cruel but november is worse.

[ewein2412]

It is my father's 70th birthday today. He was 48 when he died.

I wrote this for him 25 years ago.



Guy Fawkes Night


My father used to play with fire
and would burn anything at hand:
candles, coal, kindling wood, Catherine wheels,
incense in strange brass lamps,
bitter dry nettles and uprooted sedges.
His splendid proud bonfires danced
taller than me and as high as the hedges.

In the fog, in the rain, in the thick Cheshire dark,
my father used to play with fire:
with silver and crimson and indigo sparks
he lit all our faces with glittering light
that burnt and flared and spilt apart
confounding the wet, black night.

In a brown city of shadowed streets
my father lives now in dimlit rooms
surrounded by old lamps and candle ends
and mirrors the color of the moon:
pale shades of the brilliance that he believes gone.
But still through the deep, wet Cheshire gloom
the flames that he kindled blaze on.

Comments

[zalena.livejournal.com]

Wow, that makes two poems about your parents and November. This is a very evocative poem.

[ewein2412]

november is a tough month for me. the car accident that killed my mother was also in november, about a week before she died. And my parents were married in november. Then the whole month culminates in Thanksgiving, which always feels a bit like rubbing your nose in it after you've made it thru all the sad anniversaries.

However! It was all a very long time ago and I have pies to make to distract me!

[sovay]

But still through the deep, wet Cheshire gloom
the flames that he kindled blaze on.

That is beautiful.

[ewein2412]

thank you. It's a bit juvenile; I am a little embarrassed, sometimes, posting such things, when there are such accomplished poets reading them.

however, I am nothing if not attention-seeking! and I needed to mark the occasion.

[sovay]

It's a bit juvenile; I am a little embarrassed, sometimes, posting such things, when there are such accomplished poets reading them.

I don't think it's juvenile. I'd see it in print any day. It's a good memorial.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

That is a beautiful poem.

[ewein2412]

thank you.

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

What a lovely memorial...

[ewein2412]

it is nice to have these things on hand at the appropriate time.

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

;o)

::hugs::

[marguerlucy.livejournal.com]

*hug* what a gift to be able to immortalize your loved ones so beautifully!

[ewein2412]

I tell you, it's just about the only time I write poems any more--deaths and birthdays. (It's really true! Maybe I should do a collection. Except that my production rate is like, one every two or three years.)

[tigertrapped.livejournal.com]

The poem is beautiful, a real way to keep your father alive. And I liked the bits about the Cheshire wet and gloom - so true.

[ewein2412]

Thank you. (I should have used the Alderley Edge icon in the first place!)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That's lovely.

[ewein2412]

thank you.

[mhari.livejournal.com]

i'm sorry, ignore previous. on so many levels i should not have said that.

i love you, and i love your words.

[ewein2412]

lovely mhari! No offense taken at all, your comment made me laugh. I actually read this one first and, burning with curiosity, expected you to make some Mordred/Arthur reference. So the reality turned out to be quite tame. It is not a thing I would wish on anybody either!

i am sending you the words I read last night that made me remember this poem. My obsession with Alderley Edge is all my father's fault.

Tanita Says :

[(Anonymous)]

pale shades of the brilliance that he believes gone,

He'll never truly be gone, then.

Such a melancholy poem, perfect for this roaring wet day. I'm so sorry you lost your parents so young. Imagine, when you're 48, you will have the satisfaction of spitting in death's face. We will toast you then.

Re: Tanita Says :

[ewein2412]

it's worse than that--my mother died at 35. So I have already had the spit-death-in-the-face satisfaction. I'm getting close to 48. The closer you get to these ages, the younger they seem.

My grandparents make up for it, though--one died at 97, one at 94, and the youngest is still alive at 93.

When I wrote that poem my father was still alive (which may or may not be obvious). What inspired it was that I had recently been back to England after 14 years and was made a sort of junior celebrity by dozens of people of my father's generation--friends, colleagues, students--who knew and loved him when he was teaching at Manchester Metropolitan University--then Didsbury Teachers' College. I was so impressed at how thoroughly my father had left his mark on everyone he'd met during his two years in the UK, and how lucky I was to be able to carry on his legacy.

That was 25 years ago and I have mostly fallen out of touch with all those people, but I still have a handful of good friends in Cheshire as a result. Several of them are now well past 70 themselves and I worry about them a bit!