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Bell Birds
 
were calling me along under the riverside trees
to the bend I used to haunt in my restless forties;
leaving my wife in the car with her book ­
 
'Dreams of Love and Fateful Encounters:
The Power of Romantic Passion' ­
(I kid you not) I trod the old path,
 
dry as I¹ve ever seen it, past the anglers
casting their lines on the dappled river,
past the young couple sunning after their swim.
 
At forty I¹d see them with a jealous pang.
Where had my sensuous life vanished?
I wanted to be by a twig fire there
 
in the dusk sharing scorched sausages,
then cuddling under a rug while
the rippling river music sang up
 
a full moon to swim towards its mirrored
fragments. With whom? Not the mother
of my children, sorry. Some dream girl.
 
Who, when I found her, stirred shared
Œromantic passion¹ (if less than scorching).
Well, we¹re married now; rather than
 
a river walk, she¹s curled up with
that book, while I plod down the old path.
No skinny-dipping today, solo or shared.
 
Back at the car, passion is being analysed.


Max Richards
Doncaster, Victoria
26 March 2008