Leaving The Hurst
Bill Holloway
It’s time to go, but first
I have to take Dad back.
“I’m sorry, Son!” he says,
for the third time
“It’s nothing,
really. Nothing at all.”
“Can we go home now?”
“Sorry, Dad. There’s no-one there
to look after you. We’ll go to Rita’s now.
I’ll come for you as soon as I can –
promise.”
I feel his matchstick arm
squeeze mine through the woollen
overcoat. And off we go.
Yesterday, I climbed to the top
of Bury Ditches. My wife,
a hill-walker to reckon with
back in the day, would have been
proud of me.
Early this morning,
my father, fifty years dead,
somehow found me here.
Bill Holloway was born in Feltham, Middlesex, in 1937. On leaving the R.A.F in 1977, he became a professional gardener. He began writing seriously in the early nineties and has been published widely
in magazines and on-line. His first collection, “Natural Causes – Poetry and Prose (1994-2019), is available from Amazon or from The Suffolk Anthology, Suffolk Parade, Cheltenham.