Pant-legs take 2

Pant-legs take 2:

Even as i was seeing it live
the image indexed an old memory
dusted it off and brought it into view
like an old black and white appearing after a flicker of hesitation on the flatpanel of my mind.
I saw...
a flapping pant leg seemingly empty, seemingly vacant...
the over-sized grey fabric draping a leg
not quite fitting any shape, just hiding, concealing
Its a memory I recorded as  I walked alongside my old grandfather
some 30 years ago...
he was old then, pale-white, wizened and wrinkled
I remember noticing how he lifted his knees a little more than normal
like he was wearing pads...a batsman going out to bat
how there was a tiny veiled point where his knee was supposed to be
and how the skinny thigh and leg didn't even pretend to fill the trouser on either side of that knee.
He walked with a gait
a gait that bore testimony to his battle with arthiritis
his knees now concealed in that grey pleated wool pant from Harrods
looked like the pits that came from within a mango, dried up, angular
only his calf muscle betrayed the secret of his once athletic personage
Although I never played sports with him, I knew him as a sportsman
though I couldn't know it at the time, he's the one I miss most, daily, acutely, patiently, happily, smilingly and reverently.
Back to the current image that brought back this memory...
I'm walking with my mother down a hallway
that half step behind as children tend to do when we walk 'alongside' our aging parents
and as I look down at her stiff legs, her pointy knees, her wobbly gait
it all comes back to me.
I've seen it before: that grey fabric, those vacant folds, the pointy knees pushing ahead...

Mir