[David Callin]

This appears, with one of my poems in it, for which I'm very thankful. I don't think I workshopped it here, for some reason. Perhaps it appeared during my sabbatical.

Here it is, anyway, for anyone that's interested ...

Out of the past

This is the doubtful hour. Shapes start
to flow into each other. Shades
creep out from under trees, where they've
avoided the dogmatic sun
all day, to gather with their friends.

This is the time of day when things
are seen to be believed. The light,
more diffident, obliquer, drops
its flat insistence on who's who
and joins us in the masquerade.

Now, if ever, I will meet
my father in his Sunday best,
with the light behind him, walking
out of those old photographs,
their cracked duns and ochres,

or - more disheveled - looking shyly
over his shoulder as he backs
a tractor out of some tight spot,
tinkering with a motor-bike
or posing with a euphonium

we never saw, likewise the bike;
nor do we recognise this farmhouse
with its sycamores and sorry
garden, or this pretty girl
who sits, smiling, in a hedge.