Long Distance II

A poem that does to me what "It's a Wonderful Life" does through cinema.  like the Rilke poem I included recently, the final two lines guarantees to bring some "tears idle tears" to my eyes "unused to flow". 

Yorkshire born Tony Harrison's poem written in the 1960s captures perfectly the constant battle between love and  logic.  Many people take a rational view that there is no life after death but still would wish there to be something beyond this life, and with it, the reuniting of loved-ones.  Literature can grant a form of immortality as Harrison does for his beloved mum and  dad, in the same way Ben Jonson's son, who died aged seven, will, through verse, in the poem, "On My First Sonne" live forever.

I think it captures perfectly the nature of people, especially men to share their emotions and the age-old frictions between fathers and their sons.  

Long Distance II

Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.

You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time 
to clear away her things and look alone 
as though his still raw love were such a crime.

He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.

I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name 
and the disconnected number I still call.