The Step

Left with my mother’s parents

in Brithdir, or was it Llansanfraid?

I remember Nana washing the step

of the front porch.

No ceremony. A weekly task.

 She didn’t complain.

Rust coloured tiles.

Evoking the remnants

of the iron railings in front of the house,

removed during the war.

Melted down for tanks.

 My Grandfather wasn’t around.

Our shared duty.

 I think I helped.

She laughs as I scrub the dark lines

between the tiles,

and smiles, and gives me a treat

for my surreptitious assistance,

 or observance:

 a foil covered piece of soft cheese

 in the shape of a triangle,

 that I nibble from one corner.

The metallic taste, will be unknown to her,

 but to me is the world.

 The new world.

Soot free.

But this world:

of a small hallway and porch,

 a little woman, on her knees,

with bucket and sponge,

removing the coal dust

 from the cracks in the tiles,

 while the Minister

 prepares the sermon,

is the one that sticks.

John H Davies

6^th June 2012