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This Was a Man
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- 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
      
This site was last updated in 25th
April, 2004. Comments to Webmaster@KayBourne.com
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