ON REACHING 7O
Three score and ten,
An odyssey;
Seven times;
An end-in-itself, they say.
On reaching Ithaca,
Memories,
While I still remember,
Of demons and angels,
Mistakes and victories:
To own, to have learnt from,
To recall without irony,
Cynicism or hate.
My children’s birth,
And my birthing of many,
Each precious, unique
Moment in time,
Baptised with tears,
Of joy.
To have loved
And been loved;
To have wandered
Amongst Sassanians,
Circassians, Armenians,
Seljuks and Kurds.
On an Indian Ocean isle,
Incense and Dragon’s blood;
That filled the perfumed niches
Of a palace in Isfahan.
n exhalation of my wonder,
Of what had gone before.
On a ferry across the Euphrates
To Diyarbakir
With the tobacco traders;
I inhaled deeply
Gave thanks
Then found my way home;
Prodigal:
Forgiveness,
From the real heart.
Seventy;
An end perhaps?
Perhaps not?
Blessed by a family,
Who put up with,
Miasmic mists,
But also,
When the westerlies blew,
A father’s and husband’s love;
Setting them free.
Oh!
The celebration of watching
My grandsons grow up
Into beautiful men,
Pam would have approved.
My mother died at seventy-one:
Ithaca plus one.
We had to let her go
Into that beyond
Where her faith led her.
And the rational me
Cannot follow;
Yet somehow in this world,
All at present seems irrational,
