Distant Voices
As I stirred in my morning bed,
Prepared to meet the day
I heard faint voices in my head
From fifty years away
My father, in the bathroom,
Clearing a lusty throat
Singing in fine Welsh tenor
And losing not a note.
My mother, in the kitchen
Her sounds are everywhere
Her lovely clear soprano
Embellishing an air.
The shouting of my life-long friend
The sounds of skipping feet
Those happy games that never end,
The noises of our street
I close my eyes and contemplate
A childhood filled with joy.
Sweet memories to meditate
On when I was a boy.
And should my children, growing old,
Remember just the same.
Then even though I?m lying cold
I'll know I've won the game.
Thomas Vaughan Jones
Distant Voices
