You seem to have featured

in nearly every photograph

taken in your bypassed village

in the years following

the Second World War

you appear bemused

as though surprised

that you have survived

still strong in the weakening

that old age invites in

getting used to a world

that has changed and people

no longer being around

you have white hair

black eyes

a black suit

for weddings

funerals

and snapshot opportunities

an unconscious caricature

of film negatives

and the light and shade

of the photographic prints

of your era

sometimes you are standing

at the side of one of your sons

a father of a dozen children

pleased with the progress

of the generation you part-created

in one image you are clothed

in rough loose textiles

that could have come

from a half century previously

the tenacious thread of rural hard work

as you awkwardly but proudly hold aloft

a newborn great granddaughter

your face beaming

in the handover from

the old to the new