Father Time
It was one of those splendid mellow golden days
in early autumn when many trees, though still green,
begin to betray a trace of red or yellow.
In the afternoon I took little Eleanor to the park
just round the corner from where we live.
I came across a man whose hair, greying slightly,
was swept back to hide a bald patch. His cheeks
were hollow and he wore bifocals:
"Der Hund tut nicht beissen!"--he reassured me
when Eleanor ran up to one of his hounds.
Only little children and dogs were worth knowing,
he said, the rest he didn't give a hang for.
Eleanor was accosting all-comers--frosty matrons,
flint-faced marchers who had calculated that
the most direct path between A and B led through the park.
Then she joined in a knock-about game of football
till a young Turkish lad, shrewd in psychology,
gave her a spare ball to play with all on her own.
Her euphoria was ended when, carrying her trophy off
she tumbled down a six-inch hole. By the time
she'd recovered, the ball, ineluctably, was somewhere else.
Unabashed, she toddled to the playground, where
she found some children digging away in a sandpit.
She brought out the mother in a girl of eleven
and bathed in the glow of much adulation,
too young to know divisions of language and custom,
to be aware that the minutes were fast ticking away.
Then I looked at my watch: Well past six, almost dark.
Despite my entreaties, Eleanor remained unpersuaded
that it was really time for us to go.
With what vehemence she kicked and screamed,
how transfixing her glares when I got the pushchair
and strapped her down. She made me feel
what a pig I was all the way home.
NB. Der Hund tut nicht beissen - The dog does not bite
Copyright © Julian Scutts | Year Posted 2017
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