By the Grace of God
Patrick Toland (University of Oxford , United Kingdom)
.
.
One blessing to ask,
late at night, while the starling
rests on chittering lines and all about
is sleet, it is not to be tested
as my father was tested.
.
He held beauty in hand
as matched as any scallop-shell.
He watched it drift
across the latitudes, until it seemed
to skirl within its own oasis.
Then, my mother’s grin was only
glimpsed as glass is found
along a beach, colour worn down,
an echo of first true purpose.
.
Yes, when all the past and future
is turned to smoke within
the hearth, and he is listening
to me practising to be a man,
I wish devoutly not to be measured
by him; alone on the long strand,
his eyes cast down for mermaid tears,
the sea’s best understanding.
.
.
Patrick Toland is a teacher, Director of a Housing organisation and a mature student on the Oxford Masters of Studies in Writing. He recently had a winning poem, ‘The Naming of Stars’, in the Bodleian Science Library poetry competition 2011.
