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Drawn to his whistling we’d skip along that path,
Locked onto the shed’s old wireless; tinny and taught with his tune,
Dust waiting for our arrival by the door, yet 
Now you wouldn’t even know it was there.
The path, long ago an entry point of dreams, no longer leads, but
Follows memories gathering dust with neglect now 
Overgrown with the passage of time.

As children we would follow that path
Holding our pop’s crooked hand, a sticky bun in the other 
Trying to count the countless bricks, to the end
To the start of grandpa’s ole wooden shed, the door ajar, 
Allowing memories; old and new, to come and go as they please.
For amongst the wooden toys and tools and junk that clung to shelves,
Amidst the scent of thinners and birch shavings and oldness
There lived here once in our childhood – these happier simpler times.

Now I stand near the end of adulthood, peering in the window
My reflection recoiling at its image, flinching at the emptiness, the
Dusty hollowness that hangs there, - though 
I imagine the laughter, and see our useful little hands
Hammering in time with the wireless, our
Hair and clothes powdered with the dust
Gathered on the filaments of tales past and present.

Those memories now lay in the dust, like
Echoes clinging to a voice, all
The shelves so full of everything, yet they are nothing now
-	Gathering dust
Like his stories; buried amongst the particles, that
I now tread upon softly, not wanting the moment to dissolve
Into melancholic motes, as I close my eyes in search of a child,
Hidden in the dusty recesses of my mind.




John Lawless’s poetry contest – ‘Gathering Dust’
28 Feb. 15

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