Distant Voices

 

As I stirred in my morning bed,

Prepared to meet the day

I heard faint voices in  my head

From fifty years away

 

My  father, in the bathroom,

Clearing a lusty throat

Singing in fine Welsh tenor

And losing not a note.

 

My mother, in the kitchen

Her sounds are everywhere

Her lovely clear soprano

Embellishing an air.

 

The shouting of my life-long friend

 The sounds of skipping feet

Those happy games that never end,

The noises of our street

 

I close my eyes and contemplate

A childhood filled with joy.

Sweet memories to meditate

On when I was a boy.

 

And should my children, growing old,

Remember just the same.

Then even though I?m lying cold

I'll know I've won the game.

 

 

                                                                           Thomas Vaughan Jones