Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry

Aged 30, the song sang of
blame,
misunderstanding
of each generation deriding the one before.
We were homeowners by then
clamped to work and bank by interest rates
14.75%, down from 15.25%
how we rejoiced at the fall – the odd bottle of wine
limbo danced under the fiscal door.
And
clenched teeth at our parents generation –
government assistance to first home buyers
3% state backed loans
Keynesian benevolence underwriting full employment.

A mortgage repaid lifetime later
a friend’s 21-year-old
inventories the financial yokes of his generation :
student loans
high housing costs
health insurance,
his peers will do it tough he says because
the baby boomers fucked it up –
eating the goose that laid the golden egg.

Be part of the solution not the problem
a maxim seen and heard
heard so often, it isn’t
belonging with – have a nice day
you’re welcome.

But Sarah was.
Sole night cleaner employed when things were quieter
now, more work than hours
phoned and made an appointment to speak with me
came prepared,
had kept a record of the rising number of rooms to be serviced
supplied corroboration from reception.
Presented her case, and proposed,
perhaps :
move some tasks to dayshift, or
increase her hours, or
add staff.
Quiet, well-dressed, well spoken, well-prepared.
Her mother was to look after her three or four-year-old
but struck with food poisoning
unable to arrange cover at short notice … so if I didn’t mind …
throughout the little girl is quiet, patient and well-behaved.

21 years later I bumped into Sarah in the supermarket,
still the same and still well presented
and proud –
accompanied by her mid 20’s daughter
and three or four-year-old grandchild.

It seemed a long time before
but couldn’t have been –
little more than a decade.
He was in his late fifties when he told me
and didn’t see seventy.
I don’t remember attention,
but there must have been.
He was vague and specific
“ if I ever get run down by a bus,
everything is in this briefcase,
it’s usually here ” – showing me where.
And,
“don’t let them forget the flag
and the bugle –
old soldiers want both.”

My father phoned,
telling me his bachelor brother had died.
“Just found dead in the farmhouse.”
heart-attack the certifying doctor said,
massive – unsurvivable – death almost instant.
“I’m not sure where everything is,
or what he wanted.”
I was able to tell him.