For Roman and Cole

It seems so strange and unfair to me thatWe will never meet in the rich fullnessOf our little lives.When you came to ‘this great stage of fools’I was already sixty four – an age The BeatlesCould hardly imagine when they started out.We all lose our first few timefree years –But I keep yours like priceless booksLocked away and take them outTo read – again and again.I know I was far too wrapped up in myselfWhen your mother grabbed hold of life –I was too busy as a student and a teacher,Thought-sick, pondering the age old how to be.But when you two crawled onto the stageMy cue was: ‘Hello grandad’, a phone callFrom your dad, and then the squalling monthsAnd fractured hours for your mum and grandmaWhich came in the no-man’s land of early dawns.But then you were ours two days a weekIn our house outside Marsden – a placeFate might have designed for the four of us:A little world surrounded by hills; and waterTo skim stones in a stream snaking its wayTo a depleted dam full of bullrushes.On a huge oak tree hung a rope, teasingBoth young and old to swing into the void –You weren’t too sure Roman, but Cole launchedHimself without thought into the unknown.And then a train when you were two years old:You sat quietly Roman while Cole stood upStaring, intently at the brave new worldGliding past on our way down the Colne Valley.One moment which has stayed with me,And will always form a part of me, is whenYou both rushed out of nursery –Cole clinging to grandma and Roman shouting:‘My grandad.’So after all there is a joy the world can giveEven as it takes away so much –When that abused word love, fills your life.