The old Heifer and the Two old Bulls at Peace

Cherry

By Ray Schaufeld

Wed, 23 Nov 2016
  • 2107 reads
6 comments
 

‘It’s not age, it’s what comes with it’

The time to cook and to eat well and talk.

 

I have breathed in Pete’s garden

His hardy geraniums and forty-five year Bonsai.

 

We sit at his oak table

Stefan, Pete and I

Eating, drinking, talking

Of White Gun America

Which Trump reinvents day by day,

And of the standstill momentum of Corbyn’s personality,

We talk of how we are all ‘stored on computer’,

And then something I can’t quite fathom about car hire forms.

 

‘Shall we listen to music?’ I ask

Pete clears the newspapers

Where Sugarlump* the piddly Demerara Manx has curled

And we shift to the sitting room.

Following the Evita theme in Schubert.

 

Well before nine

I go to empty my bladder of red wine.

Pete rises, walking with his stick

And guides Stef to his cab pickup.

 

We need our doctor’s appointments

But not tonight.

 

What an evening!

 

Our children may do better,

They will never do the same.

 

* Name changed to protect her dignity

 

Certificate PG
Poem
Lost and found
Autobiography

Comments

Submitted by airyfairy on

Elsie, I think this is wonderful.  Beautifully observed and beautifully controlled, with all the details showing us these lives, the rhythm of friendship. Warm and true, with that touch of wryness.

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

Ooh what a lovely comment. My poem is autobiographical. 'Wryness' yes, well spotted! I suggest that we 'listen to music' because Pete has good CDs and ​also because when people talk about 'we're all stored in computers' I tend to switch off! Yeh, yeh, course we are but do 'they' ever have time to read every little detail about us? For the majority of us, myself included I very much doubt it.

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Maturing friendship with age, from sharing the enjoyment of gardens and food to music, with brief attempts at a bit of current affairs and worries' discussions in the middle. Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

Yes, Rhiannon you have summed my poem up well.

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

It sounds lovely, socialising, mature style, comforting and fun bar a few physical restraints. An interesting, beautiful poem.   

 

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

Thanks Jane, as a gardener you will appreciate the mature bonsai. A few restraints yes. Pete needs his walking stick because of mild - moderate mobility difficulties and he leads Stef to the cab pick-up because Stef is blind (eye infection which blew up out of nowhere 7 years ago and left him with 4% vision in his 'good eye', and 0 in the other). I am 60, Stef is 66 and Pete is 72.