Grandfather’s Wunderkammer

Poetry | Anna Kirwin

I remember feeling its forbidden nature.

Out of reach of conversation, all those wonders playing

Behind dark wooden panels, edged in gold.

I’d edge towards it, stealthy like a comic book thief,

Smooth-edged danger avoided by a turn of the page.

No eyes saw me. 

I reached for the key and felt

The satisfaction of a secret released,

An inaudible clunk 

And access was mine.

On pulling back those doors, I revealed the prized, 

Unblemished by a million stares, 

In whose wonder I might revel: 

An ichthyosaur vertebra,

An ellipsis of snowflake obsidian,

An amber figurine,

A woolly mammoth’s tooth,

The bells and the baldric.

And I remembered

How when I scoured the sands and rocks

And noticed something sticking out,

My Grandfather spoke to me gently so

I might gently coax that vertebra from its predicament 

And how he looked at me,

Proud that I was his granddaughter.

How when I’d brought the rock home

From a school museum trip 

And placed the cold smoothness in his hand, he told me

I’d picked a good one.

How we’d found the figurine when

I had volunteered to dig, 

I was only there because my

Grandfather encouraged me to make a contribution.

How we’d found the tooth when mudlarking, 

Which wasn’t what I’d thought it was, 

And about a hundred clay pipes 

In the smoke-heavy banks of the Thames.

How someone said they’d donate 

The bells and baldric of his dancers’ robes, 

But I’d said ‘no’.

He must stay with our treasures.

And now I softly let the doors

Meet, click and lock

And let those wonderous objects play

Behind their dark wooden panels,

Out of sight

But always treasured.