Stiffened and shrunk by age my grandfather

Leans forward now, confined within his chair,

Straining to raise a finger to point back

Over his shoulder, scarcely able to look

Over his shoulder through the darkening window

At the road behind him and before me where

The mailcoach ran just seventy years ago –

He suddenly tells me, reaching to capture one

Glimpse of the road where memory finds its form

And in whose lamps so many memories burn:

The armed guard in the rear, behind bars –

Changing the horses at the road’s end inn –

And where we buy his tobacco every day

Was once the blacksmith’s forge. I watch him stare

Into the crumbling coal and feel the blaze

Flare in the ancient forge and his childhood-eyes;

And whether the shoes were hammered on red-hot

Uncertain now, he recollects their glare.