What are the outward signs
of a heart caught off guard
is it tear-ing up –
if not actually sobbing
– then eyes welling
voice constrained so hard
that it’s held to
a pained silence
whilst I try to
get hold of myself
hold back the tears
open the throat
carry on speaking
You expect to tear up
when delivering a eulogy
and I have written for
my father and mother
and latterly my sister
the last and most difficult
to deliver – the words
freshly written the day before
though sixty-two years
in the gestation
I wrote on a ferry
in the Irish Sea crossing to Dublin
and there were no tears
as I laid the words to rest
any more than when
I heap tragedy on my characters
in my “serious” novel
Thomas Hardy I will never
ever again speak ill of
your torturing Jude the Obscure…
– Ah! But read back the lines
to an audience and the emotions
etched into each page
pull a garotte from my heart
and tighten it around my throat
each word another knot in it…
There are happier moments
that catch my heart off guard
the golding of greens
as the light turns to sunset
the brightness of sunlit land
against the black of a storm-filled sky
the unguarded smile
of a mother for her baby
and the enfolded exclusivity of
teenagers who are unaware of
enacting an instinct that
really urges them to make babies. I look at my partner
lost to the present
more often than not
and a thousand memories
of happier times
holographically stored
explode in my brain
flood my heart
sometimes pulling out
that heartstring
and sometimes painting on
a philosophical, ruminant smile…
© Andrew Wilson, 2023
