Kay Bourne

 

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This Was a Man
 
This was a man
Going on for sixty
Standing in front of an empty grate
Explaining.
Behind him his wife in bed
Paralysed on one side from a stroke,
And his son of thirteen
In shabby outworn clothes.
He stood before an empty grate
Half apologetic
For his own thrombosis
And the fact that -
The fact that
It was - difficult
With the money and the rent
And the price of coal,
Which they needed,
His wife being in bed all day
And night.
 
Oh Christ
What have we done for the sons and daughters
Of this country
That they live vulnerable
In wildernesses of cold grey stone.
 
He said "You must have a cup of tea"
And he, a small man,
Was jaunty and proud,
And when he leant over to speak to his wife
Gently and intimately,
She a big woman,
In his concern
There was such dignity
I could have believed
That God existed,
Had he been made
In the image of a man
Against all odds
In a council flat.
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Photo by Roger Spencer-Jones©

Copyright Kay Bourne ©

Kathleen Marie Bourne Butcher, 27 April 1917 - 31 March 2004

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