My grandfather died this week. I wrote this for him. CopperMan.
In the sweltering heat of a foreign land you stowed away metals for your wife back at home Stockpiles of iron; steel, zinc and tungsten Melted together and beaten to rings With fine dental drill bits and an artisan’s mind you carved into each, the name of a girl. And to love stricken soldiers You sold them their tokens to send to the women they all left behind.
And only the keenest, The starry eyed lovers would dip in their pockets for the best of their wares.
The dental profession hoard base metal alloys their golds and their silvers, but waste them on teeth. But you my grandfather saw your fillings for treasure. You’re a bower bird singing, a true copper man. And when the war ended you came back to Joan and with the fruits of your wares you fashioned a home. A home for your children, the six of them ragged, celtic and freckled and bursting with song. A home built on music, with pipes full of gravy with holes in the ceiling to let in the stars. And as time tumbled forward you sang still and shimmered, the copper man glinting with the glint in his eye.
Through all of the action the brewing disaster, the box car on fire, you kept us together and well fed and warm.
But you lived in the open, and life marches onwards oxidised copper, flaking and aching resplendent and green. Under the glimmer, the copper, the body, your verdant interior shimmers inside. The colour of pastures, the meadows and valleys, the home you inherited and held in your heart. And now all the copper, has faded and peeled, but we stay around you to bask in the green. And we cry for your passing but also in joy for why mourn the sunset for all of the things that its light helped to grow. And you’ll live on forever in the copper flakes drifting through the veins of your children and the tuning forks ringing in the ears of their own and live on still further in a thousand old rings hanging on chains held by soldiers granddaughters.
And we know that you’ll hear us, treading softly above you, your copper familiars with hearts glowing green.
