Grandad

What always comes to mind first
is the packet of slim panatella
which Dad would bring him every week.

How he’d lovingly tease open the first,
roll it under his nose, the ritual
of the smoker who loves his hobby.

He’d look up at us from his chair
in that beige front room in Leegomery,
call Wotcha! as though six decades away
from the East End were mere seconds.

His glasses, like Ronnie Barker’s,
the chunky brown cardies Nan knitted him,
how rough and purposeful his hands were,
stump of the finger he lost at work once.
How I loved to watch his radio controlled planes
almost as much as Dad did.

How he wheeled his drip about near the end,
had to drink those funny little cartons.
How he was the first hero we lost.

Ben Banyard
 
If you have any thoughts on this poem, Ben Banyard would be pleased to hear them.