The Philadelphian Liberty Bell rang out silently

that the British are coming,

not in order to subdue or to raise terror

and burn down the White House, to smoke

out the tender uprising,

what would be the point when if I had lived

through such times I would have been in Boston

saving the tea but pointing out that coffee

would have been more of a statement

of future intent,

no

the bell rang out for a freedom of my own making

and I allowed my friend, my Philadelphia counsel

wise, new, beautiful,

to take a photograph that has travelled with me

ever since the day I had it processed

and the only relic of the time I preserve

carefully outside of my memory.

 

Could I go back to that moment,

would the tick of drunken stupor

arise on a insanely warm November night

where the decision was met with callous regard

to turn left

instead

of going straight on

into the shadow of Pan

and finding myself in pastures new,

grazing land in which my now failing eyesight

would revel in having seen,

too many places left unexplored beyond the

confines

of my limited time and as the seconds count down

the chances of seeing it all decreasing

and this thought,

this fragment of the inexperienced

I have to shove with violence,

with despair to the back of my mind

and place it under armed guard

with muskets and wire and

only the barest scrap of air flowing through

between the make shift canvas tent

and my sanity…

 

I feel dead at the thought…

 

I feel as though I want to scream

that health rather than Time

has been unkind and that some decisions

forced by loneliness steered me

in the wrong direction.

 

Would it have

been better to never have left my Bicester home,

to be content at the half way mark

that I left my footprints

in the sand and never sampled the mud

and ever heard the sound of the

Liberty Bell ringing out gently

that the British have arrived.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015