Memories at a distance

APRIL WIND

April wind outside my windows

seems to build step over step

leading me nowhere but to the past,

tree over tree

and I remember a spring long ago

walking in a forest,

brach over branch

footprints left in April mud,

English mud, the silences of centuries everywhere,

but I knew little of that then, boots stuck, dreams stuck

I hummed a tune I’ve forgotten to slow down quick breaths,

drop, drop, drops, rain came

and I waited under tall branches

watching my prints disappear

become nothingness,

I closed my eyes, 

dreaming of every spring that had been

that this forest had seen, 

every lad who'd watched this April rain come,

every poet who stumbled over branch and stone,

leaves dripping with clear drops, sliding drops, cascading drops,

drops that never die but fall and fall,

now over me, foxes hiding, deer far away,

I counted each dream I had, called for birds to sing

soon there was a break in the storm and the thunder,

so I made my way out to the main motorway,

waited for my bus back to school,

wrote a line or two for friends at hall.

more rain came, and other footprints faded.