I was thinking about my father today, and more especially his love for poetry. Having been brought up in a house with no TV the main passtime was reading, and at a young age I got a fair bit of exposure to the poems of Robert Burns.
My father went for the poems that looked at social inequalities, hypocricy, conflict between church and state, the freedoms of the individual. Who would have thought Burns could sum up the problems of old age in a couple of lines
"But see him on the edge of life
with cares and sorrows torn.
Then age and want that ill matched pair
prove man was made to mourn."
When he was struck down with dementia, when he he could not remember the day of the week, and he had difficulty remembering what had been said to him a few minutes before, he would often perform these amazing feats of recitation and faultlessly recite a poem he had learnt as a boy. Perhaps he would do it to reassure himself that his memory was still functioning properly.
But the one poem that brought a twinkle to his eye and made him laugh was a very short one. I don't know who wrote it, perhaps he made it up himself.
"When Rob is in a rage,
He's like a lion in a cage.
But when his rage begins to cool,
He's like a puddock in a pool."
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