Sorry, I meant Andrew. Doug, I expected you to weigh in eventualy I suppose with an attack on over-use of the perpendicular pronoun. I did try to do it in the third person but it fell at that hurdle so the I was reinserted. I cut out the age in a revision, thinking it not important or rather allowing readers to bring their own ideas.
Bill
> On 17 Apr 2014, at 2:38 am, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Well, I hadnt written anything about it yet, Bill, but youre welcome. I'm thinking youre building up a little book of 'memoir-poems' here, maybe? I feel it could do with some tightening up (& I'm not sure it makers clear how young you were). But the last couplet hits hard...
>
> Doug
>> On Apr 16, 2014, at 6:11 AM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Thanks, Sheila, Doug. I was but eight. Lynn too, I imagine. Doesn't stop the lump does it, Andrew. Yours more a Casablanca-like experience? You say street but I see a railway platform ...
>>
>> Bill
>>
>>> On 16 Apr 2014, at 2:03 pm, Sheila Murphy <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>> Pretty intriguing, as this very specific situation generates thought of
>>> many related ones. Nice, Bill.
>>>> On Apr 15, 2014 2:43 PM, "Bill Wootton" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Leaving Lynn in the lurch
>>>>
>>>> In the summer of 1964 I stood with Lynn Weavers
>>>> at the pedestrian crossing in front of Giles-Grigg's
>>>>
>>>> pharmacy in East Ivanhoe, ready to cross over
>>>> to Greany's chemist. Our family never used Greany's.
>>>>
>>>> I had arranged to go round to Lynn's after school.
>>>> There she stood, on one foot, then the other, licking
>>>>
>>>> her lips as she waited for the signal to change.
>>>> I say it was summer but when I think of Lynn now,
>>>>
>>>> I recall her winter uniform: dark grey school jumper
>>>> above darker grey pleated skirt, fully pulled-up socks,
>>>>
>>>> black lace-ups, neat fringed auburn hair, unwavering
>>>> eyes, pert, serious lips closing over even front teeth.
>>>>
>>>> On top of the clinker brick garage at Lynn's place
>>>> lay a concrete patio. I liked this region. I must have
>>>>
>>>> been there before with her. But this afternoon, after
>>>> pushing the red button on the red and white striped pole
>>>>
>>>> at the pedestrian crossing, when I saw my yellow bus
>>>> come streaming through the shopping centre, I knew
>>>>
>>>> I could not resist the pull to head home. I ran streaking
>>>> for that bus and caught it. I never looked back.
>>>>
>>>> I told Mum I had changed my mind. I did not tell her
>>>> that I had not told Lynn. I never went to Lynn's again.
>>>>
>>>> Probably, properly, I was never invited. I do seem
>>>> to remember that high patio above her garage,
>>>>
>>>> ringed with a low wrought-iron fence, don't I? A plum
>>>> tree leaning over it? Perhaps I never went there at all.
>>>>
>>>> All I know is that I feared, had I crossed that afternoon,
>>>> that Lynn Weavers would have swallowed up my soul.
>>>>
>>>> bw
>>>> 16.2.14
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
>
> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
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