Montaigne thought we were going to bless the future

but it was the past she wanted to bless –

the mother surprised by love

for her unintended baby,

the Pa-man's pain and self-regard and bluster,

the promise the grandmother knitting could not make,

the hollow voice of the uncle seeing himself

as an insect trapped in a room

of inkpots and wire blinds,

and the young auntie's moonlit vision on the veranda

and over the lawn

to the dark pit under the fuchsia

that was life – or was it death?