“It’s not much of a tail but I’m sort of attached to it.”

WINNIE THE POOH, A. A. Milne

Travelling home in the gloaming from the film

‘Christopher Robin’ – where an Englishman

re-discovers his inner lost boy,

an observation that is not unkind –

she says, leaning forward confidingly,

as we cautiously join the motorway,

‘Grandma! I think Grandpa is a bit like

Eeyore’ – as one might say ‘like Charlie Chaplin

or Einstein’. I ponder, as I tut tut

at overtaking speedsters, and wonder

if there are Guardians still at the Co-op,

what it is, at eight, she sees: a mostly

avuncular, slightly lugubrious

bearded johnny with specs and a high forehead,

or an elderly child stuffed with arcana,

given to irony? Whatever it is

if there were blessings I would feel blessed