A letter to Tom and Mary

DVerse and Mary have invited us to write an Epistolary piece –http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22718
For The Poet’s Pub – http://dversepoets.com/2013/08/17/poetics-sent-with-a-stamp/
Apologies for the length.

Grandparents 1952030

Dear Mary and Tom,

May I pen a letter asking who you were? I know you are my grandparents,but that is sadly all

Grandpa we never met, I have no stories of your life - this I only blame myself
for the questions were never asked - how sad that I did not

So please I ask forgiveness, as I never knew you as a lad
nor the trials you faced in life, witnessing the wars

I know not how you met 'your Mary', or how you sang or even laughed
how regrettable, that all I know of you - are your old photographs

Grandma..
we did meet, but was for the shortest while, a child of eighteen I came to England to see you the first time. You took ill, a stroke struck you and I tended to your body,such an english rose with you hair of silver curls, porcelain skin, rosy cheeks, in floral dress and string of pearls

And I was young and so naive and went 'round countryside and fell in love ..or so I thought, when your death I read by telegraph and I the one too self absorbed - even to attend, this regret, in life I have and I carry it to my grave for I thought of only me, so I ask for absolution - for not honouring you in death

I shall make amends, though I know not where you lay, to pay respect, to show
my love – Australia’s so far away

I cannot lay a flower nor stand with my head bowed.I cannot say "I'm sorry" though I yell it now out loud. Your life, like Tom's I never knew, only now that I have aged - I wish I could have known you more, with remorse, I turn the page

18/08/2013

Non-Fiction – to my Grandparents – I keep still, in silence, in memory of you.