I remember most the visits made in summertime
After school in afternoons and early evenings
During holidays, earlier
The memories
of hot breeze, coming off baking brick and concrete
dusty blue sky,
the smell of lavender growing in a paved garden passed on the way
She has lived there since the house was built, I think
When the house I grew up in was a field on the edge of the suburbs.
Not awesomely old,
like the abstract age of trees
but old in familiar terms
That define familiar things
She has looked much the same as far as I can remember
But she is thinner, though
Skin and
Salt-white hair,
Over bone.
She seems now,
A cheerful skeleton.
In late 2003, she was moved into a nursing home. In February of 2004 I was walking past her house and saw that the lawn had been dug up and a hard standing was under construction.
This means nothing to you, and everything to me.
Update: 21/11/2005 - Today I was told that she had died. She is survived by her two sons and their families. | 
