As I watched the youthful sounding Yorkshire Poet

on stage in the furthest outpost that Lancashire once provided

but its self the gateway to boundless enthusiasm

and the cradle of civilisation in the wild, tempting lands,

I thought of you.

 

My stirred thoughts crammed with metaphor, with simile and symbolism,

the passion of friendship that flowed in the duck shaped earphones you

handed over with smiling mocking bow on my fortieth birthday

and the thank you that passes between us when needing

to crib from each other’s notes.

 

I thought of you, a dear friend and the only one

I ever allowed back in when a sourness had passed in the form

of another griping, drug possessed, self possessed, not obsessed

with your welfare and I smiled at the memory of

drinking beer with back turned as you changed your bra to go out.

 

In the audience was a lecturer, our lecturer, a very decent man

who taught us to navigate through Medieval poetry

and who shook my by the hand on the day we graduated

and again on the day I saw him heading for an interval purchase,

but not reaching his goal, as I reminded him of you.

 

I thought of you throughout the evening

and thanks to modern wonders

I knew, perhaps knew, hoped and prayed

that my friend was O.K, for surely on that cold February night

as the Marsden bard poet spoke and received applause,

you were safe and happy and I smiled at the thought of you.

 

Dedicated to Alexandra Herbertson

Ian D. Hall 2015