GOLDEN EAGLES + LITTLE WRENS

I would ask him sometimes
Why it felt so lonely
Why none of it felt right
I used to get scared being
alone with myself
With the jibber jabber
voices inside
That seemed to do nothing
But fight

Why, in the school room or the
playground
I would get dizzy, feel sick
The realness of it all too vivid,
too loud
The volume turned up
Like a strange scary trick

I would see the air in stone
cold colours
Feel the noise like a vice
It would wrap around and
squeeze me tight
Crushing my insides flat
With terror, so powerful
I would run for my life in fright

I can still recall the pain in his
eyes
So large, he seemed to me
then
A fortress in his patience
A golden eagle to my wren
He would wrap me in his great
big arms
Set me high, on the thick
stone wall
And I would feel truly at home
In those moments
Never like an alien, never
small

We would stay like that a
while
Doing nothing much at all
Just being calm and safe
In those evenings, as the sun
went down
Till mam would come out and
call

Later on, he taught me to
write
Said the pen would be my weapen
To stave off the fright

Said, let the words be your
wings child
Let the paper be your light
Use the ink from your deep
soul
To pen your own flight
Said, some things just are
child
There is no wrong or right

Later still, from his writings
I learned that he suffered too
That all the angst I wept on
him
Was sadly old, not new
He taught me love, that man
My dad
That life is a card dealt by
much greater hands
That there is nothing to do
But play them
The very best way we can

Marion Price (2020)