Tag: Travelling

Unpack and put away

And so the passport goes away
Perhaps to come another day
To take me off to distant lands
There once again to hold your hand

But now I sit alone again
Know it cannot be the same
As when we walked out in the park
And held each other in the dark

Streets which rang with laughter true
Will never more be graced with you
At least not with the you I met
That you is gone her laughs are spent

For though we held in darkness tight
Each other on in to the light
That shadow which within you knew
Emerged when far away I flew

Its sickening tendrils clenched your heart
And sundered there we fell apart
No more to find that blessed place
Though always I will seek your grace

Once more the passport goes away
Perhaps to come another day
To take me off to distant lands
Where long ago I held your hand.

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The down train

Engines’ breath exhaled
In belching clouds
While wheels on track
Deliver all
To there and back
To there and back
From there
To everywhere
In sooty slow commotion

________________________

Also, the girl next to me has the same backpack, it reminds me of the possibilities for stories that exist in what is probably a reasonably common coincidence. What if she, a spy, switches them with me to mask her escape only to meet me later in a crowded Paddington Station wearing a brown overcoat? Or I reach my hotel to find that instead of an ipad and way too many books for a 4 day weekend I have a pink fluffy towel and the makings of a vegetarian lasagne?

She leaves without incident. My imagination tries to hide its disappointment.

Not yet

Nine hours on the road, in the air, on rails, all to get somewhere I don’t really want to be. Yet I’ll take the good with the bad, for the doing of something unpleasant gives the chance of change. The shedding of granite shackles, even if only for a few days, is welcomed. Perhaps they will be loosed for good one day.

Not yet.

First I have to make it through what might be a rather dull afternoon. Though there is the dawning awareness that it would take the same time to be somewhere intrinsically more appealing.  It is present but not overwhelming.  I could spend tomorrow walking on the beach, trying to fathom which of ten thousand footprints are yours?

Not yet.

That ever-present urge to change direction, jump back on a plane and hit the reset button on life, just is. Like an appendix it sits there doing nothing, occasionally flaring up. Yet whilst it is something possible, I must recognise that it is not probable.

Not yet.

The therapist’s favourite expression as he tries to slow me down and stop me running headlong into a brick wall, or a pit of spikes, or vipers. There are, after all, very good reasons: Ones which have legs and walk around but cannot readily follow of their own volition, though I hope they would want to.

Not yet.

Tonight I will watch the lights go on once more in the City and wonder if the quantum you and I had fun that weekend we met here. Would that this were a ‘not yet’ rather than what it is, but we cannot have all things as we would like.

Not yet.

Perhaps that was the universe’s way of saying ‘Not Yet’? Yes, you will find peace, just not yet. (In the interim here is a glimpse through the window of possibilities.) Yet I lingered too long at that window and found myself transfixed.  When the shutters closed my heart cried out “Not Yet!” for I did not wish to leave. 

Not yet? Not ever. 

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