Face on a Wall

Here in this quiet house all sleep,

And I give time to memory,

Hang a sepia photo on a wall,

Pull sketches on brown paper

From a drawer. What use? some say,

Never look over your shoulder

Shun all nostalgia.

Yet I resurrect the face

Of this man of no account

To anyone now but me.

Uncle Bert loved all he did,

Was always good to be with.

He had large mechanic's hands,

Strong, though his feet were bad,

What with carrying a man's load

At sixteen in that factory

(His Ma gave that foreman

A large piece of her mind).

And he marched too far in the war

Before they made him a driver.

After demob he kept a post office,

Mended ploughs and tractors,

Drove chara tours to Snowdon,

Saved a bus-load when the brakes failed,

You should get a medal, they said.

He ran a guest house, lost his money,

Lost a leg, and then the other.

Nettles overran the garden yet he never

Lost the art of being happy,

He still had paper, brush and oil to copy

Constable was the Daddy of them all!

I search the youthful portrait,

The cheeks still holding teeth,

Trim moustache, brown hair, blue eyes,

For the warmth of this simple man,

Surprised by simple things, laughing,

Sometimes strangely anxious -

Don't look back at sunsets,

They can send you blind, he said.

To the end I see him smiling still,

Fearing each week would be his last.

Earlier he bored us somewhat

With schemes to how of win the pools.

That was when he had a little

Money to spare. Later, no pools, no beer,

Only the forbidden cigarette,

An occasional trip in the old Humber,

On its last legs (but he kept it going

Till he lost his own). The surgeon said:

We'll have that off, laughed Uncle Bert,

And he waved his absent foot.

For him whatever happened

Was a source of fascination.

But nothing is left of Uncle Bert

Except two paintings on brown paper,

A sepia portrait on a wall,

And these images in my head

Of their simple, genial maker.

They keep their warmth although,

For me, but not for him,

They are decked in Constable's snow.

©Terry Hodgson2024