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第6章 To Mick Joyce in Heaven

1

Kit-bag to tool-bag,

Warshirt to workshirt –

Out of your element

Among farmer in-laws,

The way you tied sheaves

The talk of the country,

But out on your own

When skylined on scaffolds –

A demobbed Achilles

Who was never a killer,

The strongest instead

Of the world's stretcher-bearers,

Turning your hand

To the bricklaying trade.

2

Prince of the sandpiles,

Hod-hoplite commander

Watching the wall,

Plumbing and pointing

From pegged-out foundation

To first course to cornice,

Keeping an eye

On the eye in the level

Before the cement set:

Medical orderly,

Bedpanner, bandager

Transferred to the home front,

Rising and shining

In brass-buttoned drab.

3

You spoke of 'the forces'.

Had served in the desert,

Been strafed and been saved

By courses of blankets

Fresh-folded and piled

Like bales on a field.

No sandbags that time.

A softness preserved you.

You spoke of sex also,

Talked man to man,

Took me for granted:

The English, you said,

Would do it on Sundays

Upstairs, in the daytime.

4

The weight of the trowel,

That's what surprised me.

You'd lift its lozenge-shaped

Blade in the air

To sever a brick

In a flash, and then twirl it

Fondly and lightly.

But whenever you sent me

To wash it and dry it

And you had your smoke,

Its iron was heavy,

Its sloped-angle handle

So thick-spanned and daunting

I needed two hands.

5

'To Mick Joyce in Heaven' –

The title just came to me,

Mick, and I started

If not quite from nowhere,

Then somewhere far off:

A bedroom, bright morning,

A man and a woman,

Their backs to the bedhead

And me at the foot.

It was your first leave,

A stranger arrived

In a house with no upstairs,

But heaven enough

To be going on with.

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