there were six of us
each pushing seventy,
back in the village
they now call a town,
looking for our ghosts
our pasts,
scratched on the walls, in the soil
nigh on fifty years too late,
the say never go back
things change,
get tarted-up or
age and decay
as have we, but
there are reminders
marks on the ground
voices in the wind
infiltrating our banter,
wrinkled knowing smiles
that briefly show the child,
the child that scrumped
that conkered, that fished
for tiddlers knee-deep in the stream,
and then the grown-up stuff
the lovers, loss,
tragedies played out alone
the concise wisdom of looking back
and of course, the dead,
the school photo silhouettes
that couldn’t make today.
*
© Graham Sherwood 04/2021
grahamrichardsherwood.co.uk 