This is fascinating, Bill, especially as a rewrite (!) of the earlier one. I like the exactness of the recall, accompanied by n acknowledgement that it might not be ‘real’…
Still, as memory, this lyrical narrative works: nostalgia interruptus?
Doug
> On May 5, 2016, at 5:54 PM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Thanks, Max, Andrew, Pat.
>
> As poem, it's a bit drafty and ranty I know so I have since adjusted and
> adapted, including, as Max sugests, an anecdote.
>
> Then again
>
> Faced with choice, which option do you run with?
> Kierkegaard claimed you either do it or don't do it,
> whatever the decision, you'll regret both.
>
> Alternatively, you might feel sanguine about either.
> Give it a fly. Live with it. After all, IRL, in real life,
> there is no 'undo'. What might have happened,
>
> the life not lived, lives on in a netherworld. Like this.
> 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 Lower
> Heidelberg Road. I had arranged to go round to Lynn's
> after school. She hopped 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: light grey school jumper
>
> above dark grey pleated skirt, fully pulled-up socks,
> brown lace-ups, neat fringed auburn hair, unwavering
> eyes, pert, serious lips closing over even front teeth.
>
> At Lynn's, a concrete patio, shaded by a plum tree,
> sat above her clinker brick garage in Burton Crescent.
> I liked this region. I must have been there before.
>
> But this afternoon, after pushing the red button
> on the red and white striped pole at the 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.
> Never looked back. Told Mum I had changed my mind.
>
> Did not tell her that I had not told Lynn. Probably,
> properly, I was never invited to Lynn's again. I do
> remember that high patio above her garage, ringed
>
> with a low wrought-iron fence, don't I? Plum tree leaning
> over it? Perhaps I never went there at all. All I know is that
> I feared that had I crossed that afternoon, Lynn Weavers
>
> would have consumed me. So I bailed. Left that afternoon
> unspent. Left Lynn in the lurch. I can never know what
> might have happened. Probably absolutely nothing.
>
> We were both about nine years old. Through the prism
> of time, I now feel neither bad nor good about my actions.
> But the imprint of choices taken and untaken remains.
>
> bw
>
>
> Bill
>
>
>
> On Wednesday, 4 May 2016, Patrick McManus <[log in to unmask]
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml',[log in to unmask]);>> wrote:
>
>> regrets make a thin stew ! is that a quote??
>> P celebrater!! not( celebater!!)
>>
>> -----Original Message----- From: Bill Wootton Sent: Wednesday, May 4, 2016
>> 1:34 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Regret
>> Regretters pine
>> for an alternative,
>> better past.
>> A past before
>> decisions they made
>> delivered repercussions.
>>
>> Regretters beat themselves up.
>>
>> should have listened
>> should have run with gut instinct
>> should never have done it
>> should never have considered doing it.
>> should have laughed at the suggestion
>> should have thought about the consequences
>>
>> It is to be regretted ...
>> Regretfully ...
>> Sorry about that.
>>
>> Regret is self-sorry.
>> If only ...
>>
>> Had they not met their future partner,
>> had they not followed up initial attraction
>> before partner let them down,
>> before they let partner down,
>> before they committed so much,
>> where might they now be?
>> Who can say?
>>
>> Regretters can.
>> They'd be, they think,
>> in a vastly preferable place.
>>
>> But what might be the opposite of feeling regretful?
>> A sense of blustering sureness?
>> Or perfectly sanguine acceptance?
>> Perhaps it's only human to consider your actions
>> or not consider them and reconsider after the event.
>>
>> I'm beginning to regret
>> sounding off so confidently.
>> This poem was going to slice through ditherers,
>> lay waste paddocks of might-have-beeners.
>> Everyone faces choices.
>> Kierkegaard claims you either do it or don't do it,
>> whatever the decision, you'll regret both.
>> Equally you might celebrate
>> taking either path.
>>
>> bw
>>
Douglas Barbour
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https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuations 2 (UofAPress).
Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
Transforming once reasonable human beings into gullible idiots is one of the biggest businesses we have.
Charles Simic.
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