So large in life <br />He <br />Bestrode your childhood <br />To motherhood: <br />Your personal Colossus. <br />Held you so safe <br />In the arms of all he was: <br />Father <br />And Godfather both – <br />An impossible alloy <br />Of tempered steel and tenderness, <br />With, as you would say, <br />'Not just a little of the tarbrush <br />About him'. <br /> <br />For all that, <br />Chocolate looms strangely large <br />In his legend: <br />The Bourneville Boy <br />Sporting Cadbury's <br />Tin lid soles to his shoes; <br />His WW2 medals <br />In pride of place <br />On our mantelpiece <br />Inside his Dad's <br />WW1 trench-Christmas chocolate box: <br />'For Services Rendered'. <br /> <br />So many little 'lights' like that <br />For memories to hide him in, <br />Residing there like <br />Manna and milk <br />In a daughter's desert; <br />Yet never enough <br />To even begin to assuage <br />The hunger <br />Of your yearning soul. <br /> <br />Not a trace. <br /> <br />No map or marker <br />To anchor your sailor <br />To a time, a place… <br />No stone or inscribed seat. <br />No plot in perpetuity. <br /> <br />Not a trace. <br /> <br />No brass plaque <br />To be wax-rubbed and wondered at <br />By Future's carefree children <br />Trying to make sense <br />Of life, <br />History: <br />His story, <br />Their story. <br /> <br />Not a trace. <br /> <br />Not a trace, <br />For you, <br />Looking out, <br />Of your Colossus. <br />But for us, <br />Looking in <br />At you, <br />He is ever with us.<br /><br />Tony Jolley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/colossus-2/
