So many warm afternoons
spent in my Grandad’s endless garden
Home to my first and only treehouse
when air-raid siren tests
still filled those Northern streets 

And most magical of all
the rough lumber shed he’d built
A place of wooden-handed tools
you had to carefully maintain with oil
tools that would have been his grandad’s

A place where big furry bees
chose to die with dignity
behind his motorcycle helmet
or a row of ancient cricket balls
by jam jars full of sorted screws

Eighty eight lead weights
from the keys of some deceased piano
kept for… I’ve no idea
Drawers of bakelite switches and fuses
A big old crate of things for me to play with

Such fascinating bits 
of dismantled gadgets
all teaching me to wonder 
to pay attention, and to imagine 
how everything might work

I’m still fascinated now, still want to know
how all of this might work
So, I show my working out
right here on the paper
writing with his old fountain pen…
 

[2022]