All About Books discussion

Armada

Long, long ago
when everything I was told was believable
and the little I know was less limited than now,
I stretched belly down on the grass beside a pond
and to the far bank launched a child's armada.
A broken fortress of twigs,
the paper-tissue sails of galleons,
the waterlogged branched of submarines--
all came to ruin and were on flame
in that dusk-red pond.
And you, mother, stood behind me,
impatient to be going,
old at twenty-three, alone,
thin overcoat flapping.
How closely the past shadows us.
In a hospital a mile or so from that pond
I kneel beside your bed and, closing my eyes,
reach out across forty years to touch once more
that pond's cool surface,
and it is your cool skin I'm touching;
for as on a pond a child's paper boat
was blown out of reach
by the smallest gust of wind,
so too have you been blown out of reach
by the smallest whisper of death,
and a childhood memory is sharpened,
and the heart burns as that armada burnt,
long, long ago.

from Armada, 1996.

Brian Patten is a poet born in Liverpool in 1946. He received early encouragement from Philip Larkin, one of my favorite poets. His style is generally lyrical, and his subjects are usually love and relationships. He wrote Armada in 1996, a sequence of poems about his childhood and his mother's death. He also writes verse for children.

Lovely poem Terri. The nostalgia and poignancy of the emotion are so palpable. I am unfamiliar with the poet but I will have to look out for him at the library.

What a beautiful poem, Terri. The images it creates in ny mind are so vivid, and like Leslie says, the emotion of it is palpable. "Old at twenty three" - we all thought our parents were "old" when we were little" and realise all too late how young they were.

I love the sincerity and directness of this poem Terri as well as the central charged metaphor. I'm not sure about the cadence as poetry, but the feeling definitely carries the poem for me. I'd never heard of Patten before, and I'm happy for the introduction! Thanks Terri!

The poem is very direct and hits straight at the heart. Thanks for sharing it with us.

"the smallest whisper of death" is enough to dislodge the normal happenings.

I also like the image of the heart burning as the armada burned. Glad you guys liked it. :)