Saturday 15 March 2014

Playing with the Past


I sat on a bench and I stared at the past,
and the shapes which I saw were the same as before,
but their lines were all blurred as if by the drink,
and I stared at the past and it gave me a wink.

“But why are you winking?” I wanted to ask,
but the past remained mute (and silent as night),
as the first of the images came into view:
a sky of bright blue (well it would be bright blue).

A boy noticed ships sailing over his head
on this sea of clear blue (well of course it was blue),
but he never once thought to himself, “Could it be
that the ships are just ’planes and the sky isn’t sea?”

The grass on the green which was under the sky
made a bed for this boy who was happy to be.
As he lay on the grass (the grass on the green),
I wondered out loud, “So where have you been?”

But he seemed not to see me or hear me at all,
as he lay down and stared at the sky with no stars.
He absently stared at the sky up above,
and he thought about sadness and anger and love.

                                                *

I sat on a bench and I stared at the past,
and the shapes which I saw were the same as before,
but their lines were all blurred as if by the drink,
and I stared at the past and it gave me a wink.

Her face was the image of spring in the sun,
(but wickedly smiling and rather beguiling).
She spoke with a voice, minus worries and fears,
and I thought of our years and our years and our years.

(Those days and those weeks and those months and those years
vanished into thin air, and it hardly seems fair
that they only exist now inside of my head,
and they’ll vanish forever the second I’m dead.)

Her hair was the colour of summer in June,
and cut in a way that was blossom in May.
I’d never been close up to beauty like that,
so I gave it my hand and I tipped it my hat.

Her eyes were alive to the promise of us,
and they twinkled away (as they do to this day);
and I knew there and then (yes, I knew! Yes, I knew!),
just don’t ask me how, but I did (as you do).

She danced on the pavement, her arms held out wide,
and we promised I do’s and It’s you that I choose.
And I laughed, and she danced, then we hopped on the bus,
just you, you and me, me and you, both of us.

                                                *

“But why are you winking?” I said to the past,
and he paused for a while, half-concealing a smile.
“The past is a future, just look and you’ll see;
it’s easy to get there and passage is free.”

I sat on a bench and I stared at the past,
and the shapes which I saw were the same as before,
but their lines were all blurred as if by the drink,
and I stared at the past and I gave him a wink.

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