I’m in a curious place, standing beneath a church tree
The wind whipping and whippling dead leaves at my feet,
although why they’re here I don’t quite understand,
Summer’s begun and all else is wet, ripe and green.
I ask myself the same question as the leaves had had
My flat’s just along the road, on the left – up a floor,
I can be fed, warm and lazy in three minutes or more
instead of squatting here on damp foliage, dead stone.
Why did I come along anyway, instead of staying put?
No, the real head-scratcher – would I’ve stopped at all,
if the summer breeze hadn’t a lick of cold rain about it,
or trees didn’t blow there, like tube men filled with air?
But for a foetal experience, such setting is mother’s milk,
The little tykes drink it in, grow strong and – with a pop,
a messy mass of teflon-thoughts become memory,
Collections of recollections, just while we recall.
I’m four, asking Dad to hold Mum’s hand in the hall,
Laugh, here’s my wife’s akimbo kitchen kicking-dance,
Even a stupid car. Silver, under a bridge, 20 years on.
– just checking to see if I can immortalise that too.
Soon after many years since, the rain picked up pace,
I watch it fall through a mosaic of leaves.