Ascension Day Poem by Gol McAdam

That Thursday after Mass
a tennis ball between us 
we played fast catch until the ball
cambered to an alley between factory walls
where we saw him (Creeping Jesus)
tying a rough cord round the waist
of his old raincoat. He looked up
eyes the colour of evening smiling
through a drape of lank hair.

He signalled us to follow him
to the open space beyond.
The Council rubbish tip where our
local mountain – the pit heap –
a terrain of told and untold danger
rose black in a refuse landscape.

Dawdling we watched - sideline spectators
bouncing a ball - whilst he knelt reverent
amidst land-gulls to sort amongst trash.
Then he started for the mountain.

We lagged reluctant but a measured
bouncing paced us to its base.
Well up the hill he genuflected
a silhouette of near sainthood
gathering clinker against May sunlight.

We took up a slow throw game
to me - to you - to me - to you -to me -
then the noise.

We looked up.

He had gone. Gone to the sound
of opening earth. Unearthly.

Like me do you still see that Ascension Day?

The cloud of smoke and dust lifting to the sun
the choir of circling gulls chorusing for home
the tennis ball discarded on slag.