A father, born in 1908,
might contemplate the carefully arranged,
placed before him every day,
on the table a mother cared to display
her best attempts
to erase the trials of his day,
and look at the sight, dismayed;
cautious lest any evidence
of how bereft he felt,
and how he craved a slice of a life,
now late,
which still had flavour on a plate
in his childish memory;
of when the beef were cows he’d loved,
roaming windswept Shropshire crofts,
where Horseradish re-seeds,
always already and annually;
worried he
might betray his case,
could utter up a prayer instead,
as proof,
in a form of Grace.
‘We thank you for the food we eat. We’ve really got it wrong. We really should have listened Lord, all the way along. Now we’ve got this factory farmed, miserable tasteless life, I really would appreciate your not telling the wife’
Amen
Cherry Coombe 