By The Lake

Mum and me on a lottery funded

bench in Bowness Bay. Part of us was sad

sitting there in quiet contemplation.

Mum missing a husband, me missing Dad.

 

Around our feet mallard milled and blundered

and seagulls dive-bombed down from overhead,

swans lapped up their status in the nation 

while jackdaws joined the fight for tourists’ bread.

 

A Spanish speaking couple kissed and hugged

where water lapped the slipway’s tetchy boards.

Oblivious they were to those who watched

and wondered at their secret foreign words.

 

Across the bay the cruise boats bobbed and chugged

and far away the winter snows still lay,

brilliant and dazzling in large blotches

on blue-toned fells filtered with greens and greys. 

 

And from the boathouse roof the Union Jack

flapped and fluttered like a songbird in lime

and townies, with day tripping dogs, stonewalled

correctly kitted ramblers in neat lines

 

who climbed every pavement with their backpacks

and The Guardian or Sunday Telegraph.

As oiky kids supped warm cheap lager, called

them tossers and old farts and swore and laughed.