The call
ringing, echoing through my mind.
There stands my mother
in the hall of our erstwhile family home.
Elegant grey hair swept behind
the antique white telephone held to her ear,
the fingers of her other hand playing nervously
with the curling umbilical telephone cord.
Her concerned glance meets the reassuring gaze
of my father, standing beside her.
He looks much younger than my mother.
Strange, but he had been dead for years
when my mother was that age, of course.
His neatly trimmed Errol Flynn moustache
twitches, betraying some anxiety on his part, too.
RAT-A-TAT…
Open my eyes
to behold my wife, outside,
tapping on the French windows.
Her hair, ruffled by the breeze, also an elegant grey.
My God, we’re older than my parents!
She’s returned from shopping,
forgotten her keys.
Struggle up from my easy chair,
must have dozed off.
Realize the phone really is ringing.
Grab the cordless handset
kept at the ready on the arm of my chair.
“Hello..?”
“Dad!” My son, calling from the hospital.
“It’s a boy! 7 pounds 2 ounces. They’re both OK!”
Look up, smiling the marvellous news
to my wife, watching expectantly
on the other side of the glass.
And to my parents, glimpsed again,
fleetingly, further beyond.
Great story, though ‘erstwhile’ jarred a bit! What about ‘old’ or just ‘family home’?
Love the three generations in one poem. I know what you mean about those realizations, it’s quite a shock when you suddenly think that you are the age your parents where at some point, and you thought they were ancient then!
I used “erstwhile” rather than “former” to indicate that the family home was long gone – but perhaps not!
Perhaps not indeed, Jonathan – it’s regarded as an ‘out-of-date poeticism’ and such are rather like the flu -things you don’t want at any price! But a lovely poem nonetheless.
I do realize it’s an old-fashioned word, Gill. That’s why I deliberately chose to use it, as I explained to Sarah – along with the “antique” telephone & my father’s “Errol Flynn” moustache, trying to evoke a bygone age. Too subtle, perhaps!
I agree with all above!
Ditto!