Commentary

Those last years proved hardly elegiac after all
but, through a son’s account, filled with dismay and pain.
Arlott’s Alderney visitors left saddened. There again,
the process of change can only impress or appall,
not reassure. Slower, dreadfully slurred became
the unmistakable voice treasured from boyhood,
a sound of summer bound to bring untold good
once heard, in mellowness that turned Bakelite to gold

and swathed poetic images first heard, then seen.
May certainty be reached? Nothing remains the same;
still-eager ears are fed with fragments not yet blurred
by time. The score’s more vital, as is every word ...
While memories darken, one dwells on the written-off game,
and pointless rain spills over grounds no longer green.