
Anyone want verse to teach them how free we are to keep our lives where we want?
Or a poem for love and the dragging away of you for some mandatory service?
Do you need to realise how relatively free we are?
And that everywhere you go your thoughts can take some containment?
Is it important to realise true freedom and know that all before have sacrificed?
What has happened?
Is it me or everyone else?
I'd had some thoughts about the 1914 war before, but this time I imaged it was me being sent to "fight".
I thought about the time just before leaving with a lover and maybe friends.
I imagined the train journey to the packed harbour with the smell of coal and steam.
I then imagined the abyss and what could happen, but at the last moment, inexplicably, I did not feel frightened.
A hot summer is heard at last but this time feels very different.
Where the river meets the sea I sit and wonder how and why I am here again.
It was as though it kept repeating itself until I had a final answer.
I opened the envelope in my hand, it was the least I could do whilst waiting for you.
I looked; I could hear my heart beat faster.
I had been called up to go to another man's war.
The Tone in Summer
so that you give last --
a touching holding creation
special link I lose