In all the adventures a man can have, surely

the last they can have in the modern age,

one devoid of dying in battle, sword carried high, noble steed

between his legs; the final brush with an opposition

much respected, perhaps in a way adored, the sweat and humidity

of the final swansong as the owner’s sword is impaled on himself

fully sheathed,

and the opposition goes on to conquer the next in line

like a domino pushed over, perhaps to enslave and terrify;

the last resting post of the humble shed, hiding away in the crevice afforded

by a beautiful garden and tended with serenity by a young woman

with buttercups in her hair and who lets you,

the owner of the shed, to potter alone with images of

past glories

on the battlefield, from first kill, to desertion, to ultimate hero

in one person’s eyes,

the shed is the resting place in which all soldiers go to die.

 

I have never owned a shed, mind, I have never owned a car as well.

To have one at my age, suggests I’m ready

and barely capable of dibbing my own putter into the fresh soil

that Mother Nature provides with lush abundance

and in which the young woman with buttercups placed in her hair

by noble yet decaying soldier who loved the front line finds

he cannot make her garden fertile and in which, for now,

her Rose Bush remains out of reach to him.

To have the other, suggests to me that the Mid-life crisis

enjoyed by so many, is at hand, that I would steam down

the lost Route 66, I would fly where I heard Eagles once dare

and I would offer many a lift in return for a smile

and the chance to

talk about what drives a man in his forties

to consider he is capable of driving anything with gear stick shift

and races off as if injected with new super fuel;

to be honest, the thought of an earlier breakdown in the middle

of nowhere, the engine pumping but leaking petrol and in which

younger drivers offer to take care of my passenger for me,

the look of pity and sarcasm in  her eyes…

well perhaps its better

to have time alone in the shed, the evening light streaming

through the dusty windows and still mucky panes

like crisscrossed spiderwebs caught in candle light;

better to remember the smell of neatly tendered roses

in the garden

than to run out of petrol and disappointing your ride home.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015.