Cahal Dallat

Cahal's's poem as discussed in the workshop:

Grandfather

Sat on a dining-room chair he had turned
himself years before, he'd sip tea as I played,
bounded by doorstep, wood-shed, pram,
the meat safe where butter sat under a muslin
with ends dipped in water, the hopper where suds
guttered out from a single-tub washing machine.

Once, perhaps high with hopes, perhaps
with the notion he hadn't long left, we set out
past the limehouse, the boatshed, the coffin-shop up to
the orangegroves Patrick had grown in the war.
Cutting a wishbone-shaped hazel-twig,
he planted his chair and sat down to wait.

Sure, he'd have known the run of the burn
from the Hospital Field through the culvert beyond
but I walked to and fro for what seemed like miles.
All he would say: You're as bad as your Da.
Then: One last go. But this time he gripped
my arms at the elbow and this time it lepped.

Lately I crossed the same stretch with my da,
asked if he knew there was water below
and he told me how Granda once took him
that same hopeful trip at seven or eight.
And did it twitch? No! Well, maybe the once –
when he gave up and took my wrists in his hands.

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