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
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