After lunch my daughter picked
handfuls of wild flowers
she knew her grandfather liked best
and piled them in the basket of her bicycle,
beside an empty jam-jar and a trowel;
then, swaying like a candle-bearer,
she rode off to the church
and, like a little dog, i followed her.
She cleared the grave of nettles
and wild parsley, and dug a shallow hole
to put the jam-jar in. She arranged
the flowers to look their best
and scraped the moss from the stone,
so you could see whose grave
she had been caring for.
It didn’t take her long – no longer
than making his bed in the morning
when he had got too old to help her.
Not knowing how to leave him,
how to say good-bye, I hesitated
by the rounded grave. Come on,
my daughter said, it’s finished now.
And so we got our bicycles and rode home
down the lane, moving apart
and coming together again,
in and out of the ruts.
