Cider with Gramps

I don’t recall that last time I ever saw you...
too young, as I was; I only remember
one day, you weren’t there anymore,
and I wondered why, and I asked, but
way back then, kids were meant to be
seen and not heard.

I like to think it was that afternoon
you took me to the park – the leaves
of the conker-trees, dripping wet
from a summer shower. On the way home,
we stopped for some bread; you let me
pick the crust; said, what Gran couldn’t see
wouldn’t hurt her.

When we got back, we two sat on the porch –
you made me fresh lemonade, but what I liked
best, was a ‘special’ wee sip of your beloved
glass of cider. You’d talk to me like I was all
grown up, and blow smoke rings from your pipe,
then wriggle your ears, one at a time,
like only you could.

Stars punched holes in the sky...Orion, riding high,
and then, you cuddled me, as I snuggled my head
in your lap, and you carried me in, upstairs to bed,
and not asleep, nor awake, that night, through
an open window, I heard the rustle
of an owl’s wing.