She was old when I first knew her
To an infant, parents are timeless;
Fairy aunts are just… old.
A tiny scarecrow of a thing,
Her eyes glittered; her mouth
Never offered an ill word of anyone.
She was a good woman. She never tired
Of talking about blind Jim – a good man –
With girlish love in her face;
One man, one love, one life
He wove wicker and filled mattresses
And listened to the wireless in the evening.
Her constant thought companion
As so many might-have-been heroes –
Gone, before I could know him.
Christmas would wend round each year,
With Meg as star guest,
Tipsy before the Queen’s Speech,
Whisky rouging her cheeks; fairy lights
Made envious by her laughter,
My mother, and hers, basking in gleelight.
I grew up there, every other Sunday,
Overlooking the Hospital and the Tay
From the safety of her living-room window,
Inventing spaceships and spies,
Dreaming of who I would be,
As my mother and Meg made small-talk.
Month by month, her daylight dimmed.
I never saw it. She was only ever her;
Happy, constant and true.

Afterwards, I learned about the
Vying accountants and surgeons,
Postponing, year and again,
The procedure. She told me, when finally
Her appointment was confirmed,
That when the cataracts were gone,
She was going to buy a ticket
For the number nine circular
And spend all day upstairs,
Just looking out of the window
At the city she’d lived in
For nigh-on ninety years
A week before the operation
Her home-help found her in bed, with Jim;
Smiling as they danced through the daisies.
She seemed no older when she died
Than when I first knew her.
A good innings, they all said.
Not enough.
If only by the length of a bus ticket –
not enough.
Feb 26, 2013
Feb 26, 2013 at 5:27 AM UTC
She was old when I first knew her
To an infant, parents are timeless;
Fairy aunts are just… old.
A tiny scarecrow of a thing,
Her eyes glittered; her mouth
Never offered an ill word of anyone.
She was a good woman. She never tired
Of talking about blind Jim – a good man –
With girlish love in her face;
One man, one love, one life
He wove wicker and filled mattresses
And listened to the wireless in the evening.
Her constant thought companion
As so many might-have-been heroes –
Gone, before I could know him.
Christmas would wend round each year,
With Meg as star guest,
Tipsy before the Queen’s Speech,
Whisky rouging her cheeks; fairy lights
Made envious by her laughter,
My mother, and hers, basking in gleelight.
I grew up there, every other Sunday,
Overlooking the Hospital and the Tay
From the safety of her living-room window,
Inventing spaceships and spies,
Dreaming of who I would be,
As my mother and Meg made small-talk.
Month by month, her daylight dimmed.
I never saw it. She was only ever her;
Happy, constant and true.

Afterwards, I learned about the
Vying accountants and surgeons,
Postponing, year and again,
The procedure. She told me, when finally
Her appointment was confirmed,
That when the cataracts were gone,
She was going to buy a ticket
For the number nine circular
And spend all day upstairs,
Just looking out of the window
At the city she’d lived in
For nigh-on ninety years
A week before the operation
Her home-help found her in bed, with Jim;
Smiling as they danced through the daisies.
She seemed no older when she died
Than when I first knew her.
A good innings, they all said.
Not enough.
If only by the length of a bus ticket –
not enough.
