Old Dutch Painter's Seascape

For W.

We were a pair
of happy children
as we first met;
it's half a century
ago. Loving to
meet in Pooh's
Corner, I stretched
softly my closed fist:
Look, I said, I have
an Elephant in my
hand, O, how scary!

Now you enter your
seventies and sigh:
Don't shout so loud
but whisper when
you speak. I am
that Elephant in
your lovely hand,
I reply, please kiss
my trumpet before
we're dead, I say,
We still are this pair
of children to stay
out and play.

(tynvdb/190115)