Summer evokes memories. I must be something about its sensuality: Light clothing, heat, floral fragrances, sweat, skin. Suddenly you find yourself in a fold in space and time, and things from long ago move through your heart and mind….

 

 

 

Clanville Road

 

 

 

 

 

I drove down Clanville Road last night.

 

Summer with the windows down

 

Transporting myself through

 

A corrugation in time,

 

The old road swayed and dipped

 

Before the car swayed and dipped

 

And I knew each nuance

 

Like each furrow in my shin bone,

 

Like each time you drove the bathroom

 

Window open to wave goodbye

 

As I flew up the side street

 

Having only just rolled off in 2 a.m. silence

 

So as not to wake your parents.

 

 

 

I drove past Clanville Park last night,

 

Tasting the breeze of thirty-odd

 

Years before, this body

 

Now testing basic structural principles

 

In its lack of integrity, insipid, as if

 

The balance of years had somehow

 

Reversed – the strong, healthy young man

 

Bereft and needy in heart –

 

Now driven, as a pilgrim to unity

 

Of purpose while his ageing body,

 

Bereft, needy, arthritic and balding,

 

Looks for a resting place.

 

 

 

I turned from Clanville Road last night,

 

Though wanting it to last, so I could tell

 

That young man what to look for,

 

How to love, how to break

 

Himself before the accumulating cache

 

Of what he didn’t choose chose for him –

 

A coalescing fear that drove away all

 

That he held dear and melted

 

What resembled the chassis of his life.

 

I wanted to brake, tell him to pull over,

 

That the breeze that feels like freedom

 

Never is, but still feels that way,

 

Wanting him to know the difference.