Poetry

There was no going back
That night on High Street
Carried as we were,
Up and down the street
On a warm soft breeze
While the evening shimmered
In a glow of springtime mellow
That matched the wine and conversation.

We ambled, happy and unsure:
Not like the explorers of long antiquity –
They knew where they were headed,
My word they did.
Not for them the mystery of the journey,
No sweet Jesus:
Landfall was the only thing that mattered
Somewhere to be
Somewhere to discover
Some place to name and call their own
Only to find
When they arrived
Confirmed by sextant and by compass
People already lived there.

Inconvenient that.

And so now
Having seen the difference
Between the journey and an unknown destination
Things must always be –
well, different.
There can be no denying
No obfuscation of the facts
No quibbling on the margins
Of pain and dispossession
Difference must require
An effort, by many and by me
To listen to those
Denied the right to speak

And so I was glad
Beyond the measure of a destination which you need only reach but once
That to keep the progress of our journey underway
You asked,
For one more glass of wine

Do you remember
When you first stood in the world
On the line between right and wrong
And looked at both, back and forth,
To realise there was a difference?
Perhaps incapable of description
By a mind so young
Something inchoate and unreasoned
But still, there it was.
And standing there
Before whatever caused the moment
Did you lift your little hand
To find your mother’s grasp
And an understanding
That she knew the difference well enough
And so too, now did you?