He grew the biggest pears in Buhbayduss. Full-bodied
affairs that everyone kept watch on
each season, calculating pale-yellow prize
in the purse or on the tongue.
This redbrick man with a mean streak
to his generosity. Who worked the land
but had the motion of tides on him; clouds and weather
patterns in his eye. Sniffing the air to say exactly how,
when and where rain gine fall. A man who named
all the cats and dogs he ever owned Peter, Mary…
Peter, Mary and/or…Peter, Mary. A sea-faring
land-lubber who X’d his wife but still sailed home
with sweets! Dresses! Stories! Trinkets tumbling
from mouth and pockets and arms half-held wide.
An ancient-and-modern man rolling ’bout de floor
wid he offspring; singing hymns, teaching them
the harmonies. Imparting joy and rivalries
with penny rewards per degree of difficulty –
the youngest raking in the money and praise
by tackling the bass.
This same man shows his trildren how to land
a punch, to fight with fists as words, words as fists.
(Words were always more important they say/he said.)
Never a man to mince his own long-talk
or admit he might have got it wrong,
my mother’s father could drop ’sleep strong,
cutlass under the bed, keeping score
of everything and everyone: all deviations
from his song sheet—the humming in his head.
You’d need a new branch of Maths to fathom
a man who’d cut down a tree before losing
a few pears to thieves; who tore up a house
and all its contents. And me,
I was never any good with figures.