My father

Touch: The Journal of Healing

My father

by Murray Alfredson

Once you said you were not proud,

when stepping from the shower to see

the glass fling back your body shape

through steam to slap you.

Nor proud, you said

elsewhen, to see your writing quaver

its ink across the page, even

though your hand showed still its line,

its character.

What would you’ve had

instead, old friend? Most at ninety

years and more would have a body

bone hard and trim, and have

no thoughts, nor hand to fill a page.

Murray Alfredson has worked as a librarian, lecturer and in Buddhist chaplaincy. He is a prize-winning poet, has published essays and poems in Australia, UK and USA, and a collection, ‘Nectar and light’, in Friendly Street new poets, 12, Adelaide: Friendly Street Poets and Wakefield Press, 2007.