This evening, I thought of you <br />after, how long, forty years: <br />you, sitting across the oak table <br />in the old forge's kitchen, that John had made <br />from salvaged shop fittings, <br />his sleeves rolled up, workmanly care <br />mixed on his face with amused dissatisfaction; <br /> <br />you, looking across at me with a girlish joy <br />which, daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, <br />was always there – a girlish joy <br />that could hardly believe its luck <br />to find its understanding in another; <br />enthusiastic excitement rising like a blush; <br />then a little check of breath, as if <br />in company, courtesy required <br />it be controlled, or else <br />it would flood out and fill the room, <br />burst open the doors, out across the fields, <br />to seek out every other soul that welcomed it… <br /> <br />in such a moment shared, (it is as if) <br />one knows everything one needs to know <br />of earth; of heaven.<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/0037-to-for-sheila-w/
