Poems

Latest poem:

A matt of bluebells and the wind in our hair

I didn’t want to leave
Neither did my friends want me to
My parents had come to pick me up
“We’re in a hurry”, they’d said
Then got engrossed in adult conversation
More than courtesy required
To thank my friends’ parents

So the 8-year-olds that we were
Filed out the back door
Unhidden, yet undetected
We crossed the lawn to enter the woods 
That covered the slag heap
Soaring behind the houses

It was an early Spring morning
Sunny and fresh
The bluebells had bloomed in an explosion of blue
A matt of vivid colour overtaking the black earth
Brightened here and there by a shaft of light

We wandered through this glowing heaven
Joyful and wholesome
And climbed up along the old rails
On the bald head of the heap
Lay an abandoned cart
Half-buried under its own load
The wind made our hair and t-shirts
Slap the air like proud banners

We made our way down
What felt like a minute later
To be greeted by the thundering eyes
Of our parents
We had been gone for hours

Relief had turned their panic
Into the rage of the deceived
We were told off and scolded
Harder than ever before
Sermoned
Treated to icy resentment

Yet I remember thinking then
As I am thinking now
It was worth it