Henry Ross Etter turns 67

Tomorrow is my father's birthday, and luckily today he was moved from the hospital (where he was treated for an infection) back to the rehab centre, which is some improvement. I think the poem below is the best one I've written for him, so I'll include it here in honour of his birthday.

His Pantoum


This is the West Country: if it rains, it rains all day,
winds as fierce as anywhere
sweeping hair into my eyes at every crossing.
When did my father get old?

The prairie winds were as fierce as anywhere
when he cycled thirty miles a day.
When did he get old?
This is his twelfth day in intensive care.

When he cycled thirty miles a day,
I went on with my life, unfearing.
This is his twelfth day in intensive care,
my sixth year abroad,

going on with my life, unfearing.
Sweeping hair into my eyes at every crossing
in my sixth year abroad,
the West Country, where it rains and it rains and it rains.


(published in TLS, June 2007)