Memory Chairs Poem by June Walker

I bought four wooden chairs
from the hospice charity shop,
honey-coloured wood
with noticeable knots,
and spars across the legs.
Sturdy, functional, dependable.
Reminding me of the chair
I sat on every morning as a child,
waiting for my grandma to make me
French toast, a boiled egg, or sausage,
before she oiled my cycle, polished my shoes,
tied a ribbon in my hair and said,
‘Have you got your homework? ' and
‘Here's your schoolbag and your scarf, '
then sent me off,
up the road,
over the bridge across the canal,
to school to learn.
But they could not teach me as well as
breakfast time
on the wooden kitchen chair.