Boy

BOY

By a student teacher

There's a gap between your front teeth,

And yesterday a big black bruise

Adorned your forehead.

You pointed cheerfully at Billy, best friend

For a hundred years,

‘He did it - we were horsin' 'round,

Great craic like.'

I watch you write, each letter a trial of

Patience, pain and

Perseverance.

The marks you leave look more like a

Trail of rabbits' footprints

Than that list of German

Verbs

I spent all week trying to teach you.

Boxing matches and frogs and rugby

And Billy

And ‘Are you on Facebook, Miss?'

A boy, walking across the road of life.

Over hills, through valleys,

Step carefully on those creaking bridges,

Watch the traffic on those

Highways.

Sometimes I feel your eyes on me

During a lull in the restlessness of a boy.

Brown eyes, mirrors of the soul,

Filled with painful, frightened,

Lonely questions

That you could never ask aloud,

And I see the hidden spirit that is

Locked away behind the talk of girls and detention.

Its hard being a boy from a broken home in a

Predatory,

Bloodthirsty world.

Boy, our paths crossed for a few, short weeks,

And though I would show you the best road map

For the rough, wild way that lies ahead,

And hold your hand like a guide through the

Maze of growing-up years,

I must soon leave.

All I can do is give you my prayers

And the memory

Of someone who truly cared

For a boy.

Guitars and Potatoes

This doesn't have very much to do with the defined subject matter of my blog...but if I don't put it in here I may forget it.

Yesterday I was walking back from the city centre toward the Cathedral and was just coming through Abbeygate street, when I passed a curious individual. He was an old man with grey hair wearing a red hat and his face was tanned in a weatherbeaten way - the face of someone who's spent most of his life out-of-doors. He was wheeling an old bike along the narrow footpath and looked like one of your typical free spirit, 'I've spent my life on the road' musicians. In his left hand he carried a simple guitar and because of the drizzling rain and the generally horrible weather conditions he had the body of it wrapped in (this is the best bit) an old potato bag. An empty, old, potato bag. When I saw that I knew that here was your genuine article. If I had a camera I would have taken a picture. If I didn't have to go and sit at a table for Societies Day I might even have followed him and found out if he was going to play anywhere. Music from a guitar that lives in an old potato bag must be something special.