words to mark one year since you stepped so suddenly out of this earthly realm, on the 12th of January 2023
Dear Dad
I see you
In the glint of sun
Off the white of a seagull’s underbelly
Aloft in the breeze, flying free
I feel you
In the force of the wind
Blowing waves in patterns through the grass
I hear you
In the frog song
Giving chorus to a star strewn Cederberg night
Your life was not glamourous
And I loved you for that
I sit here now at your abandoned toilet block
Where you sat so many afternoons with our dogs
I stir up memories of your London chapter
You had some hard years
But you wore them without shame
I recall days spent in your van
Delivering computers around the English countryside
Belting out old South African songs at the top of our voices
Eating bacon butties in motorway layby caffs
Weekends exploring London’s nooks and crannies
“Remember to look up”, you’d say
I want to remember you
Not as I found you
On that awful haunting night
But with your blue smiling eyes
A chameleon perched atop your hat
Your shorts patched with old cushion covers
Marvelling at the fluid grace of a sprinting dog
Stooping down to pick up litter on the beach
Collecting it in your beautiful hand-stitched leather shoe
The shoe that tapped
When you listened to a guitar well played
So much of me is you.
Embracing all your faults
And idiosyncratic ways of being
I am proud of who you were
So grateful that you were my father
So here I am
Sitting at your abandoned toilet block
You are the wind in the grass
The frog song on a rainswept day
