Welcome to Litsy!

"Newborn, fresh licked, still slobbering,
I lift this calf and drape it, a warm scarf,
About me, neck shoulders, around my need for loving.
I bunch the infant bull hooves, my greed for him,
In one knotted clasp, in my two fists, in no doubt,
My wide elbows the structure of our unity, our debt.
Our faces side by side, close, calf gaze milky with content.
So what now, my little god bull, my burden,
This to be a statue, shrine, an idea, gift, glory."

There's something poignant about poems of childhood written by a poet reaching the end of life. Ida Graves, a distant cousin of Robert Graves, was a member of the Bloomsbury Group, first published in the '20s, who put this book into print in 1999, the year of her death, aged 97.
The poems arc from birth, through childhood, into maturity and end with a group looking at death. The title poem, and first in the collection, may well be my favourite.