FOR DAVID
I tossed a rose
into the tide
And bitter wind and
blowing snow
Off Norway, where
his ship went down,
Torpedoed fifty
years ago ----
But though my heart
searched everywhere
I should have known
he wasn't there.
I should have
sailed that narrower sea
Back home, from
Lancashire to Mann,
And left my rose in
that dear isle
Where our lost love
affair began.
(Not here,
along this stormy coast,
Should I have gone
to find his ghost!)
He will be back in
Urry Lane
Or where the
dance—hall used to be;
On Peel Hill by the
Wishing Well
Or walking on the
shore with me
At sunset, young
and brown and tall ----
(And that
would be the best of all!)
And if, as Parson
says, someday,
Somehow, somewhere,
we'll meet again;
I'll wait for him
in Market Street
Or up the river in
the rain
At dusk, the church
clock chiming seven ...
And there, back
home, we’ll find our Heaven.
Joan Pomfret
MY MOTHER'S LETTERS
My mother has a lovely gift
Of making words on paper live
I Wonder does she, can she know
What confidence her letters give?
She conjures up an autumn day,
The homesick scent of garden fire,
That steep street half a world away,
The heather hills of Lancashire
She writes of little homely things,
New babies, friends, my Own home-town
And miles apart, I feel the love
That fills her as she puts them down,
And see again the hearth of home,
The shining lamp, her high-back chair;
My father’s eyes upon her face,
Her patient smile, her silver hair,
No detail is too small, too trite—
Of rose-hips, orange in the lane,
A wedding at the near-by church,
Some neighbour’s son come home again.
Chance meetings in the market place,
A pattern for a winter dress;
Stray gossip — and on every page
A message fraught with friendliness.
She writes about the house, the moor,
The garden plants and how they grow;
White beehives, dropping apple bloom
And all the things I used to know...
And every time the postman calls
My lonely spirits seem to lift,
The empty space is bridged again —
My mother has a lovely gift!
Joan Pomfret