uncleduck

I chose If, by Rudyard Kipling. My Year 12 listened with far more attention than usual, hanging on every word. By the last line my hands were dripping with sweat (I don't usually do public readings of poetry).

What I didn't tell them was the reasoning behind my choice of poem. We were supposed to choose one that meant something to us rather than some random piece of verse. I had read If at school and had listened to Des Lynam recite it in 1998 after the World Cup (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tjuihw2q_Ts ). I had probably read how Kipling's inspiration was a friend who presumably rebuilt his life's work with worn out tools and lost it all on a game of pitch and toss, after knaves mis-represented him to trap fools.

Sorry, it left me cold. Maybe I wasn't ready for it.

In 1999 it did register with me. I was in a different frame of mind from circa 1990, looking out a classroom window at the rain. I was in a different frame of mind from 98's football overdose. I was standing in a hallway in the Royal Victoria Hospital, my grandfather losing blood faster than the doctors could pump it into him. While I waited for the botched-up post-op dressing to be fixed (and while my Grandfather patiently wondered if he'd get out alive), I paid attention to the artwork in the corridors and at one end If was posted up.

I was in a reflective frame of mind. My grandfather's op hadn't worked out (regardless of the failed stitches) and he had a few big problems to consider. He was speaking to me in a far more serious tone than before. Long gone was man-and-boy and forgotten, for a while, was old-man-young-man. These were "If anything happens - no, REALLY, if anything happens..." conversations. These were "I mightn't get a chance to say this, so I better say it now" conversations. It was heavy stuff, mixed with laughter and his on-going bet with the guy in the opposite bed (50p to the winner - when, exactly, would the dirt on the floor be swept).

His hopes - presumably that the world would be mine and everything in it and that -much more - I'd be a man, my (grand)son.

So poetry sometimes leaves us cold and sometimes the same poem strikes a chord. Sometimes a poem brings back memories of years ago, like a dusty corridor in an old hospital and an old man who was very much aware of his mortality.