Colossus Poem by Tony Jolley

So large in life
He
Bestrode your childhood
To motherhood:
Your personal Colossus.
Held you so safe
In the arms of all he was:
Father
And Godfather both –
An impossible alloy
Of tempered steel and tenderness,
With, as you would say,
'Not just a little of the tarbrush
About him'.

For all that,
Chocolate looms strangely large
In his legend:
The Bourneville Boy
Sporting Cadbury's
Tin lid soles to his shoes;
His WW2 medals
In pride of place
On our mantelpiece
Inside his Dad's
WW1 trench-Christmas chocolate box:
'For Services Rendered'.

So many little 'lights' like that
For memories to hide him in,
Residing there like
Manna and milk
In a daughter's desert;
Yet never enough
To even begin to assuage
The hunger
Of your yearning soul.

Not a trace.

No map or marker
To anchor your sailor
To a time, a place…
No stone or inscribed seat.
No plot in perpetuity.

Not a trace.

No brass plaque
To be wax-rubbed and wondered at
By Future's carefree children
Trying to make sense
Of life,
History:
His story,
Their story.

Not a trace.

Not a trace,
For you,
Looking out,
Of your Colossus.
But for us,
Looking in
At you,
He is ever with us.