Another poem by Alison Brackenbury (see also weeks 20 and 225), one of the contemporary poets whose work I find most congenial for its humanity and formal skill.

The Queen referred to in the second stanza is of course Queen Victoria, not the late Queen. As I have observed before, it is easy to forget just how far back the direct oral transmission of memories can take one – my own grandparents were born in the 1870s.

My Old

My old are gone; or quietly remain
thinking me a cousin from West Ham,
or kiss me, shyly, in my mother’s name.
(My parents seem to dwindle too; forget
Neat ending to a sentence they began,
Beginning of a journey; if not yet.)

Cards from village shops they sent to me
With postal orders they could not afford.
They pushed in roots of flowers, carelessly,
And yet they grew; they said a message came
To say the Queen was dead, that bells were heard.
My old are gone into the wastes of dream.

The snow froze hard, tramped down. Old footprints pit
Its smoothness, blackened footprints that I tread
That save me falling, though they do not fit
Exactly, stretching out beyond my sight.
My old are gone from name. They flare instead
Candles: that I do not have to light.

Alison Brackenbury