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…