Fay Atherton
The Historian
There he goes, pacing the bailey,
hands behind his back, head high,
as if he owned the place.
The lad is castle crazy.
His mind is full of battlements and drum towers,
he dreams of escalades, he counts
putlog and beam holes,
gazes down weedy moats.
Sometimes he's a longbowman at Crecy,
pressing the weight of his small body
between the horns of the bow,
rich in self-worth; invincible.
A humbler role is finding openings
in hollow walls; there he is now,
head inside, heels up, ruining his sweater.
There are places where a grandparent can't go!
He'll vanish soon, into the past
of the tunnels, the screams and the silence;
into the future where I will not
follow, where all I can project is trust.
Page(s) 30
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