There’s a story I wanted to tell
I started it long ago
clutching pen in aching hand
the ink overlapping with the lines
I never really knew what I was doing
will you listen if I take some time to unfold
There are ribbons so long and tangled
some caught up in the gears of your story too
we rode so closely through the long grass
The rain sheeting down around us
small trees in the distance grew so big
as we crawled across the plains

With each mile
you laid a hundred pieces down
With each mile
you inked a thousand colours into the picture
With each mile
I drove so much closer to what is at your core

Below the branches of a towering giant, we kissed
or talked, or laughed or shared something special
the esoteric smile of friendship unmasked itself
I scratched your name into the bark of my life’s tree
I never really knew what I was doing
could never see the next scene coming
the script was never read, so we ad-libbed
The bright glow of the footlights caught in our eyes
as we crawled across the stage

With each sunrise
our roots interwove with new density
With each sunset
our understanding rose in its ability
With each moon
our fate loomed in the mine-black of night sky

So, where you got to, well I couldn’t ever say
some people once so important are so subtly forgotten
I looked around one lost October evening and you were gone
there wasn’t time to find you, the wheels spun even faster
passionate lava swiftly flows into a passive ash

O, these are very fine memories
but nothing more now
everything comes to its ultimate conclusion
the threads of all the untold stories tie themselves in knots
people gone, places left behind, ways of life; discarded
these are very fine memories, experiences
but nothing more now

Making sense of where these moments fit
they are all that was; the magic, the disasters
a quiet library of time-traveling destinations to enjoy some day
head against the glass on an east-bound train

So here’s me; looking over my shoulder
with Magdalen in flames and a tear in my eye
but for once, I’m certain of something
I am doing what’s right and needed
happy and resolved;
I’m saying goodbye...

(For Oxford, Sept 2011)