Hal G.P. Colebatch: Learning of the death of the Circus Girl

Learning of the death of the Circus Girl

Your family had been Circus for generations.

When we were very young

We dressed as toreadors in spangles,

Rode ponies in the Grand Parade.

So I was Circus, too.

My young life’s proudest moments.

The second proudest

(What would Health and Safety say today?)

Was riding Oscar, the gentle old lion.

The third proudest was ordering

Non-circus children off the clowns’ trampoline.

You should have died in a spectacular trapeze accident,

Or with the cats (now banned).

Anyway, something more

Than just a Christmas Card returned

“Addressee deceased”

At the end of a year full of death.

But I will always remember you,

And our spangled costumes,

the ponies, the band, the cats,

the high trapeze flyers,

the Spanish Web,

the applause of the crowd,

the trumpeting elephants,

and that I was, a little, Circus too.

For me you’ll always be under the Big Top.

Sparkling.

Hal G.P. Colebatch