For you aged 56

I see you striding along Windy Gap
wind buffeted, bearding the storm,
or in your long boat, horn-helmeted
beaching on unknown shores
splashing through shallow waters
to reach new land.

And in the firelight, sword clanging against sword
rallying your men: `A Brée, à Brée'.
There's the dilemma -
this century has made a scholar of you

set you to read books
and forget your Viking ancestors.
But they stir softly as they lie
reminding you of other worlds and ways.

I see you speaking to large audiences
your hands eloquent, your voice enthusiastic
enchanted by the shape and structure
of the concept you are formulating
convinced this is the most exuberant moment
and that very soon you will
reduce the complicated equation
to one single digit - maybe zero.

I see you with your children
roles reversed from the usual parent-child
you listen to what they have to tell you
In the end, you say, this is what it is all about,
the importunate gene
your daughter, your granddaughter
love beyond reason and the clearest bond of all
because her hands resemble yours
because she continues your life.

I see your face when we make love
marvellously awake, watching for my delight
moments that I find no words to capture
since words are too solid and too circumscribed
to catch the unsubstantiality of sex
buoyant delight, tongued ecstasy.

I see you bending in the lamplight, mending a broken pot
See you impatiently striding
along corridors, or streets, or mountain ridges.
See you curled on your side, deeply sleeping.

Flash film: the little boy toddling across a lawn in India
the serious student, ambitious and amazed
the lover, wanting all doors to open, and they did not
the father giving away his lovely white-gowned daughter
the son following his mother's coffin to her grave
the man grieving and angering and searching and loving and asking.

You are all your shifting moments
all the memories that are stored.