Drowning
Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 3:22 pm
DROWNING
Why give the place its name, when it has changed,
where, in the grasping waters of the Gryfe,
he, his name forgotten now, was drowned?
What is remembered is his little life?
Ask any man of forty-odd or so,
he'd think a bit, as if he had to try
to bring the name back from its tragedy,
though, struggling with the tide, he saw him die.
One I could ask was wild, swam in the buff
where Gryfe's clean waters raced the greedy Clyde
beside the bridge where ladies parked and watched.
To dry himself, he ran the countryside.
Kirk elder now, who shot the sparrows down
with airgun resting on a garden fence,
how fares your soul, handing out the hymnals,
who in your sin worked wicked innocence?
One I could ask has crossed the Scottish seas.
From Canada, we've heard no news at all.
He took his boots, his two sly winger's feet.
We miss the man as if he'd pinched our ball.
Most stayed at home, or near it, so they drink
on Friday nights or Saturdays and where
men know each other and suppress remarks
on sagging bellies or receding hair.
One I could ask has fired his life away
with bottle after bottle to his mouth,
raw liquor in the turpitude of ditches
while blubbering a sermon on his youth.
Ask any man of forty-odd or so
around the parish by the Clyde's run sweat,
he'll shake his head as if he has forgotten,
then walk away and wish he could forget.
Remember, how we ran up to the bank
and, naked, how we screamed and jumped right in?
Those ladies, watching, must have thought we tried
to please them with the courtesy of skin.
That was our time, and after he was drowned.
It did not mean we had forgotten him.
It is a law, to disobey scared parents.
What better pool than his in which to swim?
But watch the changing waters, when the tide
runs up, its shoulders hunched, with winking eyes,
and with a nip of sea and a dark surface
it steals the calm reflection from the sky.
They worked him free. They packed his clothes around him.
They sat him on his bike and wheeled him home.
Too young for swimming then, I was in goal,
when, from our pitch, I saw the dead boys come.
Douglas Dunn.
Why give the place its name, when it has changed,
where, in the grasping waters of the Gryfe,
he, his name forgotten now, was drowned?
What is remembered is his little life?
Ask any man of forty-odd or so,
he'd think a bit, as if he had to try
to bring the name back from its tragedy,
though, struggling with the tide, he saw him die.
One I could ask was wild, swam in the buff
where Gryfe's clean waters raced the greedy Clyde
beside the bridge where ladies parked and watched.
To dry himself, he ran the countryside.
Kirk elder now, who shot the sparrows down
with airgun resting on a garden fence,
how fares your soul, handing out the hymnals,
who in your sin worked wicked innocence?
One I could ask has crossed the Scottish seas.
From Canada, we've heard no news at all.
He took his boots, his two sly winger's feet.
We miss the man as if he'd pinched our ball.
Most stayed at home, or near it, so they drink
on Friday nights or Saturdays and where
men know each other and suppress remarks
on sagging bellies or receding hair.
One I could ask has fired his life away
with bottle after bottle to his mouth,
raw liquor in the turpitude of ditches
while blubbering a sermon on his youth.
Ask any man of forty-odd or so
around the parish by the Clyde's run sweat,
he'll shake his head as if he has forgotten,
then walk away and wish he could forget.
Remember, how we ran up to the bank
and, naked, how we screamed and jumped right in?
Those ladies, watching, must have thought we tried
to please them with the courtesy of skin.
That was our time, and after he was drowned.
It did not mean we had forgotten him.
It is a law, to disobey scared parents.
What better pool than his in which to swim?
But watch the changing waters, when the tide
runs up, its shoulders hunched, with winking eyes,
and with a nip of sea and a dark surface
it steals the calm reflection from the sky.
They worked him free. They packed his clothes around him.
They sat him on his bike and wheeled him home.
Too young for swimming then, I was in goal,
when, from our pitch, I saw the dead boys come.
Douglas Dunn.
