Ready for parade me and my younger brother James (Church Lad’s Brigade)
This poem recalls a carnival day way back in the early 1960’s
I feel the sticky tarmac
pull me back in time
To those forgotten moments
Within a youth that’s mine
Dressed in Chafing clothing
While walking on parade
Beside a fairy princess
In horse drawn cart displayed
My hat is at a kilter
While socks are falling down
As there upon that beauty
I saw her floral crown
She really cannot see me
As she waves and milks applause
But she is just our Mary
And lives by me next door
This poem recounts how your history disappears before your very eyes and only lives in your memory.
I hear such Gentle Whispers
As they stumble through my mind
I dance at all the wisdom
These sleepy voices find
The way that they make order
From all that’s came to pass
Like showing me a memory
I once, had thought, I’d lost
Faces that were missing
They fall within my view
To let me bathe in glory
Of loves that I once knew
They showed to me the flowers
That in my spring did rise
And how throughout my summers
They’d swayed before my eyes
They played to me the singing
Of all my friends of youth
And told to me their stories
Of hopes and cares reduced
They walked with me through a lifetime
As if for now it’s spent
All wrapped in Gentle Whispers
That God alone has sent
From that to this
The final poem reflects on what we had before this age of speed
You’d never give them credit
For the bloody mess they’ve made
Ripping out the trees
for the tarmac they have laid
The green that was the bushes
Is ploughed beneath the grime
And all the pretty driveways
To service roads resigned
They wrapped it up as progress
But that just makes me laugh
As the lorries thunder passed me
With scarce a moments lapse
To think they once convinced me
This was the way to go
But now that I’m much older
It’s now I really know
They did it all for profit
Without a single care
And robbed me of the pretty road
That in my past was there
Thought to Ponder – Life doesn’t count for much unless you’re willing to do your small part to leave our children — all of our children — a better world. Even if it’s difficult. Even if the work seems great. Even if we don’t get very far in our lifetime.- Barack Obama
Music on You Tube – With a song in my heart – Jane Froman…
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