[David Callin]

This appears, with one of my poems in it, for which I'm very thankful. I don't think I workshopped it here, for some reason. Perhaps it appeared during my sabbatical.

Here it is, anyway, for anyone that's interested ...

Out of the past

This is the doubtful hour. Shapes start
to flow into each other. Shades
creep out from under trees, where they've
avoided the dogmatic sun
all day, to gather with their friends.

This is the time of day when things
are seen to be believed. The light,
more diffident, obliquer, drops
its flat insistence on who's who
and joins us in the masquerade.

Now, if ever, I will meet
my father in his Sunday best,
with the light behind him, walking
out of those old photographs,
their cracked duns and ochres,

or - more disheveled - looking shyly
over his shoulder as he backs
a tractor out of some tight spot,
tinkering with a motor-bike
or posing with a euphonium

we never saw, likewise the bike;
nor do we recognise this farmhouse
with its sycamores and sorry
garden, or this pretty girl
who sits, smiling, in a hedge.

[Ann Drysdale]

A lovely poem and a prestigious placing. Great stuff.

[Carl Copeland]

This is just what I wanted to read this evening, David! I love how the concrete images in the last three stanzas are attenuated by “if ever,” “we never saw,” “nor do we recognise.” I did puzzle a bit over “are seen to be believed.” Could it be that if someone actually sees what “has to be seen to be believed,” then they see it to believe it?

[Sarah-Jane Crowson]

Woohoo! That is a brilliant poem, David (it really is, it's evocative and lets me see people through the images, and is full of that aching sense of the hopes and dreams of the past).

And I agree with Ann, too. What a lovely venue to be published in!

Sarah-Jane

[John Isbell]

Just to join the chorus of praise. Molodets!

Thanks for posting that poem, David, it really was a treat to read, and what a gentle and generous homage to your father while you are at it. In his Sunday best.
A sidebar - I am intrigued by the girl in the hedge. I see you with old photos before you as you write.

Cheers,
John

[David Callin]

Thanks Annie, Carl, Sarah-Jane and John.

Yes, it's good to be accepted by Acumen. This is not my first time, but it's always good. (It is still a relative rarity.)

Cheers

David

[John Riley]

A very good poem, David. It connects.