The Attic

Overlooking this timber-beamed, wood and junk-floored space
is the water tank and his little brother, impotent against all invaders,
now guarding other occupants that have come to stay - for a while.

The tree has climbed back to its resting place in the corner by the wall,
five Christmases old and not a needle, only its lights, shed;
they have stopped their rainbow blinking for another fifty weeks.

Suitcases and bags: green and black rucksacks that have been my companions
half way round the world - that crossed high Andean passes and desert plains;
the backpack that I trekked with across England from Whitely Bay to the Solway Firth.

And boxes, boxes, cardboard boxes: boxes of children's toys waiting
for them to grow young again, boxes of books waiting to be befriended again,
boxes of Helen's dresses and cardigans waiting to come into fashion again.

The family tent of sunny memories, astonished to be sleeping under a tiled roof,
guessing it will never be re-erected, but waiting to be resurrected;
treasured things, forgotten things, dead things reluctant to go to the dump:

a tennis racket, my folded Afghan coat, an electric fan cooling its heels till summer,
a foam mattress awaiting visitors, the wooden crib my father made for me,
a camping stove; all asking: 'When will we come alive again?'

March 2008