My aged father’s an armchair traveller,
many train journeys were recently taken,
rocking rail rhythms send him to sleep
then some thought makes him rewaken.
Carriage windows reveal rural scenes,
he recounts who met and where travelled;
what’s going on in his muddled mind?
Fact and fantasy, point crossings straddled.
I try word association, ask questions,
and read him the Good Shepherd Psalm;
defused many decades of menacing moods,
now benign smiles, some laughter, much calm.
Each time I board the ferry to Wales
I wonder – will this be a last visitation?
Twice he almost died but then revived,
but onward ticket states: Terminus Station.
kickstartyourheart 