Only Questions

I suppose I knew when we were ushered,In silence, into the small room:‘My name’s Charlesworth, I’ve been told my dad’s here,He’s had an accident. Do you know . . .?’A doctor’s waiting room, it seemed, where folkWait to be cured of life’s side effects –But no – I knew them all – my family:They stared at me and my wife as weStood there, awkwardly, staring down at them.My daughter, fourteen, crying softly,My mother, alone now, no longer a wife.And the others mute, staring back –Their eyes betraying that here, there was no cure.

Silence still as the lift took us down -A depleted group now:Grandad to remain a magical memory,A man who sang and rocked his grandchildrenTo Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do.I too had been rocked to that same song,But here and now, in this underworld,I knew the mute frame laid out before usWould demand no more answers -Only questions as old as timeWhich would never be answered.