Shakespeare

In Memoriam: E.E.I.

I must have been just eight – it was 1953 –

When in some parlour of my mind he pulled a chair out

Like a book from a packed shelf, then sat down and got going.

Fifty-eight years have passed and he hasn’t finished talking

Nor I listening. My father was already dead,

My mother’s now been dead for thirty years. Who else

Have I got to know like him, learnt more from, loved more freely?