Thanks, Doug.
Bill
On Saturday, 7 May 2016, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 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]
> <javascript:;>> 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:;>
> > <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml',[log in to unmask]
> <javascript:;>');>> 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] <javascript:;> 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
> [log in to unmask] <javascript:;>
> 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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