I remember it, if only in fleeting images.

August 2003 – I was eight years old.

I don’t remember the lights going out,

But I remember sitting around the lantern

My Mum filling it with D batteries,

As my Dad told us it wasn’t just here.

It was dark for hundreds of miles around.

 

Later, I remember peering out the window,

Leaning way out from my top bunk.

My parents were sitting together outside,

On the edge of the deck in the yard below,

With a wind-up radio between them.

 

Did they have a glass of wine out there?

Strange how so much of your life

Is forgotten forever after living it.

I don’t remember the wine,

But it fits the memory so nicely.

I do remember the radio murmuring quietly,

And them, murmuring quietly.

Saying whatever grown-ups say

When the kids are safely in bed,

And the power is out.