the song of the slumbering summer season of 1914 under whitespread skies 

in the depths of my daily despair
obsessive thoughts, songs & stories,
coil and twist me into words, 
in this wise fool’s daily darkness
 I finally find my feet: moving
under the whitespread skies
of a forgotten England.

 

memory, a mere nothing, always incomplete;
curdles thoughts of my sorry England, 
words  emerge as I peek
into the past, words entwine my restless mind,
under these same whitespread skies;

amidst this current chaos, a spasmodic light gleams,
a harvest moon, a friendly old lunatic,
like me, and so many of my forgotten comrades,
who stalk this poor man’s sky with grace and poise
time drifts by, becomes a beacon of hope, 
in the presence of the risen sun;
we find solace, as time drifts away,
as we learn to cherish the live-long day….

Oh, the power of rhyme, in beaten times like these,
healing wounds, giving us breathing space,
to build shrines of words for all our
lost boys and girls in all their dear-bought
unaccompanied grace.

stranded they may be,
but they set their spirits free 
with hearts on fire
‘neath this whitespread sky
where softly this song was sung
one slumbering summer night, so long ago,
in old England - et in Arcadia ego
….

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