Time passes,

the poet once wrote

but in amongst the autumn

thoughts and withered unseen tears

I dream of you,

I dream of you because my childhood

in amongst leafy Oxfordshire lanes

and burnt blue skies,

of winter depths in which a broken heart nestled

and turned to a poet’s words for comfort,

in spring when the fire in my stomach blossomed

and war and unimagined kiss wrestled

within the summer heat away,

I dream of you often for Time has not passed,

Time…

has stood at rest and beats no more

for the dead, the dying and beautiful still

whose words of love crowded the shelter

we paraded in upon Garth Park’s leisured green

and to whom the smoke of half hearted cigarette

was the prelude,

the opening act to that stolen kiss of teenage years.

 

Time passes not…

 

In my memory you look the same,

I see the Oxfordshire town in glory,

static charged, tranquil in spite of all that

died and the Time between us

is only marred by preservation, my memory

sits in the autumn, in the stagnant summer,

the kiss of winter and the fire, the burning red star

of spring’s first rose…

Time passes not in my memory;

for you still look the same

as the day when you first bestowed upon me

a faint smile of hope.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015