wandering around milan my father i know that (bred in the bone) i'm you i walk and think - my legs roll onwards i take in the atmosphere but not the view
but now you're dead - and i've been silent for the past five months since you were burned a numbness that called itself acceptance sat in my heart and outward yearned
with other deaths i've not been stingy when my mother died and then my daughter a kind of celebration knew me and words flowed upwards like clear water
but you were ninety-two in dying when nature came proudly to claim its own you went as rightly as you'd journeyed and words had best leave well alone
but as i sit on this sunny sunday watching an italian family pass i am this small boy holding tightly his father's hand across the grass
and here as i sit now weeping lightly i'm sorry for those speechless tomes that only now dare dredge that language to honour your presence in my bones
and child to you i am a father and my own children i tightly need for all those deaths i deal them daily may these green words a little bleed