of your existence, and can see you now
pumpkin-faced, smiling, patient and uncomplaining
but bowed - waiting. Waiting in ease for the sun to set
on that bleak industrial landscape, and rise, flushed in blessing,
when you in the abundance of your store, would be King.
I had a clear view of your triumph, and can see you now
cloth cap and blazer, passing contented through the ranks.
Pleased I was, and proud that I had signed the parchment.
But when I signed the parchment to your widow, three weeks later,
and remembered you visiting in your Sunday best, I knew,
that I had been deceived. And that both our store's were empty.
__________
© Cormac McCloskey
This poem tells the story of Bob, an odd job man in the Machine Shop, in Larne, where I had my first job. Frail (but still working in what was a cold and generally hostile environment), I was moved to ask him why he hd not retired at 65. In reply, Bob told me that by working until he was 70 he would get a bigger pension. An explanation that I took at face value. But when he died, six weeks after he retired, I knew the truth. What had kept Bob at work was companionship and the feeling that he was needed. Hardly surprising, from this gentle man who had fought in both world wars.
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