Memories

 Memories

Memories that come flooding back

Of half forgotten afternoons

In sunny Churchtown of the sixties

Happy we and didn’t know it

Healthy we and didn’t show it

Time we lavished just like water 

Slipping softly through our fingers

Unconcerned about a future 

When time grew tight and water rationed

On a landscape truly altered. 

Memories these that lay submerged 

But a foot below the surface 

Lying still for half a century 

Til the haze this afternoon 

Til summer heat in the garden

Brought back the sounds and smells

Of the times we thought forgotten

The ‘temps perdus’ no longer lost

But seen obliquely as through a gauze 

That stops our heart and makes us pause. 

Back we journey a generation

Mingling with dear folk now long dead 

But alive to us and living still

Within our heart and imagination. 

These memories that are part of us 

The ground of being that lifts the spirit

That clothes our soul, suggesting old songs

As we fall back in nodding slumber

This afternoon in striped deck chairs

To the hymn of bees in a warm back garden.