To my father, solicitor to the landed gentry

If you were still alive You would be ninety-six tomorrow. I think of you most days. Just now, for example, I heard you Defending the word ‘folk’ When, sometime in the Eighties, I said it was twee. Another day, I see you doing the weeding At my sister’s wedding And another day still You’re at church Hunched over a book With your fingers in your ears During the sermon. Often I hear you sneezing. When you lay in your coffin Your face was as darkly speckled as an old deed  — I think of that, too. My brain breaks you up like this But really now you are all together And not far away.