Poems Against Oblivion
by James Graham

2. Domain
This man went out to work
in the early light. The drystone walls
were written in his hand  the tight
barbed fences finished in his style.
He knew the patient art of topiary:
made smooth a half-mile-long
dishevelled hawthorn hedge  and sculpted
a lamb  a squirrel  and a hen and chickens.
He mowed the verges  cleared
the leisure-paths of weeds. The estate

was an exhibition of his art. It was the property
of a money-man: a totter-up of rents  a master
of dusty miners. Meadows  paddocks  copses
of delicate trembling silver birches were

his realty  and my father’s piece of Earth.

3. Frontier
My father stood quiet one day
on the little bridge across the Annick 
watching  watching the flow: white dances
around futile rocks  the cool procession
towards the sea. Then  'You see that sign?’

he said. I’d seen it many times:
the STRICTLY PRIVATE  nailed to a tree.
Eyes smiling  'If a trout ’ he said 
swims under the bridge this way 
he’s a private trout. But if he goes
that way  he’s free. Better off than us’.

I thought. 'There’s another one down there.
It says NO FISHING. So over here he’s safe’.

'That’s true’  he said  and we turned away.

4. Sunday
He read the Bible  listened
to the Morning Service and the News 
forbidding the ungodly Hit Parade.
He observed the day of rest  except
for gardening; he may have prayed
and got forgiveness from the Maker
of all living things. The News

was from a hell they called Korea.
While he listened and shook his head  I went
off to my room and read the ungodly Beano 
or down the riverbank to my cave. Korea

was a spectre. Then after tea 
down to the Mission Hall to hear
about another Hell  where poor goats
ended up  and Heaven where it was always

Sunday. Long  stern Sunday. Six days
my father worked  and talked  and laughed
at radio comedy  and I loved him.

5. Spud Gun
My mother finally surrendered 
bought me a spud-gun -- for the sake of peace.

On the bus  I fondled it. It turned
into a Smith and Wesson. Home at last

I headed for the ammunition store
next to the kitchen  helped myself

to a spud  and went on a spree.
Took aim at a blackbird  missed.

A butterfly  and missed. So I took on
all the outlaws  desperados  bandits 
brigands  hoodlums  pirates 
who were in the garden at the time

and who thoughtfully stood still.
Happy and murderous  I did not see

my father at the gate. His face
was not cloudy. He held out

his hand  and raised his eyebrows 
and I laid down my arms.

'How many have you killed?’
'Oh  lots. They were all bad men.’

He hunkered down to my humble rank.
'There are no bad men.

Men do bad things. See that
bad man just over there?’ -- he pointed

to a floribunda rose in bloom --
a little light that was in his head

went out. He’s dark inside. Did he
kill a man?’ I shrugged. 'He couldn’t see

it was his brother. He must learn
to light his little lamp again.

Do you understand?’ I didn’t.
I nodded. 'Time you had a bike’.

He buried my heater
somewhere in the woods.
May be there still  for all I care.

6. Elegy
'Finish the hay today’  was the boss’s
peremptory command. 'Expecting rain tomorrow’.
I don’t recall him ambling  strolling. Admirer
of Mussolini  he always strutted. Now

he strutted off to his affairs. Ripe hay
to feed his handsome horses  fast over fields
and graceful over gates and hedges. Steady 
quiet  sedate while the rowdy hounds
busied themselves with the fox. Tall hay

to be scythed and bundled  loaded  carried 
back and forth a mile each way. Rain tomorrow 

fill the store today: so back and forth old pony 
along the rutted road by the riverside 
up the winding rutted hill  and stiffly
down to the stables  back and forth till dusk.

The sun near setting  the valley in shadow 
old Bridget stopped on the rutted hill.
My father’s urge was gentle; faithfully
she won another yard or two  and stopped again.
We stood down  man and boy  and led her
gently to the summit  paused  caressed her.

'This is too hard’  I said. 'Aye  son’  he said.
'He’s killing horse and man’. I was called home

from school one day soon after. I knew at once.
My father too had stopped. His sun had set.

7. Far Away but Clear
The young eagles have fledged: a species
of brave and kind moments is not extinct.
His love  his laugh  his stoicism  have left
the safe eyrie of my mortal memory

and can be seen  far away but clear 
climbing the tenuous air of the world.