Blue on Blue

On Sundays we’d go fishing,
on Clapton Common; Dad
and me. Thermos flask,
and red, chequered blanket,
there we two would sit
at the edge of the pond –
makeshift rod in a four-year
old’s dimpled fists; a twig,
tied with garden string.

Asked my dad, when the fish
would bite, and what kind
were they, anyway? ‘Not sure;
teeming with fry though.
Could be salmon, or trout –
even the odd shark, or two,’
he said, knowing full well
the only aquatic life it held –
tiddlers, tadpoles and frogs.

Mouth agog with amazement,
casting my line to the skies
watched it make a perfect arc,
run rings around a midday sun,
then sway in slow motion –
suspended, in space, almost
as if time had stood still.
‘Look...there!’ he cried.
‘A hatch of dragonfly.’

Blue on blue; their sole
reason to be born;
to feed, to fly, to swarm
above this pond. For once
I had no questions, and he
had no answers.

Hugging me to his chest,
he asks can I see them – eyes
tight shut as if to offer up a prayer
we could keep this shining moment,
and for forgiveness, for the fishy yarn
he’d sold me, spun from afternoons
like these, by a man – ever
a child inside.