Nostalgia and regret are difficult to do well, Max - but this one works
for me. You ground it in the present well, starting and ending.
Martin
> 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 Išve ever seen it, past the anglers
> casting their lines on the dappled river,
> past the young couple sunning after their swim.
>
> At forty Išd 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
> romantic passionš (if less than scorching).
> Well, wešre married now; rather than
>
> a river walk, shešs 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
>
>
>
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