Filling Time Poem by Jim McDonald

I met my grandfather again last night –
strange, as he died in 1998.
World Cup Year.
I spent some time filling him in on what had gone on since.
He had missed out, he said.
He was pleased to hear that Brazil had won since, lovely team, he said.
Closer to home, he was more vague.
I asked him how he had been filling his days.
Collecting thunderbolts, he said, and painting rainbows.
Charming the Saints,
Breathing life into butterflies’ wings,
Running across rich people’s lawns an hour before dawn,
Being the first footprints on a snowy night in silent town squares
Running his hands across kestrels’ wings.
Could he see me, I asked, from where he was?
Oh yes, he said, he hadn’t gone away.
He had seen me weep for him at the crematorium when he said he wasn’t there.
He had seen me in his house, and wondered why he wasn’t there.
He had watched me search the world for some truth, when it was right there
under my nose.
A little truth is there, he said, and easy to find.
I asked him where.
He told me that children contain the truth.
Truth leaps from their lives likes sparks from a blacksmith’s hammer, he said.
I began to tell him about my beautiful daughter that he had never seen.
I have seen her, too, he said, and watch over her nightly as she sleeps.
There was nothing else to say, he said, and began to slip away.
I always want more, and asked him for one more truth.
He laughed. Send me an e-mail, he said.

30.7.07