Man and Boy

I “Catch the old one first,” (My father’s joke was also old, and heavy And predictable). “Then the young ones Will all follow, and Bob’s your uncle.” On slow bright river evenings, the sweet time Made him afraid we’d take too much for granted And so our spirits must be lightly checked. Blessed be down-to-earth! Blessed be highs! Blessed be the detachment of dumb love In the broad-backed, low-set man Who feared debt all his life, but now and then Could make a splash like the salmon he said was “As big as a wee pork pig by the sound of it.” II In earshot of the pool where the salmon jumped Back through its own unheard concentric soundwaves A mower leans forever on his scythe. He has mown himself to the centre of the field And stands in a final perfect ring Of sunlit stubble. “Go and tell your father,” the mower says (He said it to my father who told me) “I have it mowed as clean as a new sixpence.” My father is a barefoot boy with news, Running at eye-level with weeds and stooks On the afternoon of his own father’s death. The open, black half of the half-door waits. I feel much heat and hurry in the air. I feel his legs and quick heels far away And strange as my own — when he will piggyback me At a great height, light-headed and thin-boned, Like a witless elder rescued from the fire.