A worn hand rough like sandpaper and offered in greeting,
'Too old' for kisses,
Asking in mixed language if we have been good
Shouting funny sounding words with a serious glare
Our Grandad.
Scared, we'd run into the back yard
And hide behind a row of gooseberry bushes
We didn't understand at the time
You were deaf, years of mining dark tunnels underground
Had left you unable to hear your own voice
We thought you bad tempered
And cross.
Sitting amongst prickles and thorns
You'd seek us out tempting us
With biscuits and warm flat lemonade
From the pantry and plastic bowls
To pick the hairy green friut
Ripe and tart
Sour on our tongues
Three gurnying children with stained fingers
We'd assist tomato harvesting too
The green house a humid jungle ours to explore
Armed with water sprays and wooden stakes
We'd gather peas from forests of canes and green
Eaten before they reached the sunday roast
Your edible garden.
In the shed, cool and dark,
Scented with creosote and compost, forbidding,
A hundred hooks on ceiling rafters
Pointing to the biggest,
A sharp claw waiting in the dark,
My sister would say
'He puts you there if you are naughty'
From some hang kabanos and kaszanka
And sausage covered in a white webbing of fat
A game to dare each other in for ten
With the door shut behind.
Autumn and we'd be put to work collecting fruit fall
From the orchard floor
Pears and apples rusty and rotten, mush in our hands
I picked up one full of holes, a colander specimen,
And out flew a wasp stinging me on my hand
The pain hot and instant, instictively I ran to you
'Dziadek! Dziadek!'
'Lodoiska?'
My swollen and reddened wound held out towards you
With tweezers and a surgeons skill
You removed the offending sting
And with a gentleness not expected from a man your size or stature
You tenderly applied 'magic' cream and passed me folded tissues
And sitting me on the leather sofa
The backs of my bare legs sticking to the hide
You blanketed me with stuffed toys and told me the story for the first time
Of what happened in the war and later, coming to this country with nothing
And making it home, my home
And the pain didn't seem so bad anymore.
Growing up I never understood who you were
Not until you didn't know yourself did it become clear to me
When teddy bears I played with as a child
You clutched tightly and cradled in old age
Some days not knowing who I was
Most days speaking in mother tongue
Fed by tube and straw, laid flat in the room you kept for best
Washed and shaved by your wife and best friend of 56 years
I realised I mistook your concern for sterness
Your passion for anger
This colossal man, a constant throughout 25 years of my life
Who with genial and humble grace commanded the attention
Of an entire room, lead three generations of family to success,
Was the greatest man I'd ever met
And to who no one has since come close
Everyday I miss you dearly
Everyday I am proud.
Ach Å?pij kochanie.
JeÅ?li gwiazdkÄ? z nieba chcesz dostaniesz.
rating: 18
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