It’s Spring Again
Again the hungry wolves of winter failed
to drag him down. What kept him on his feet was
family, friends and uncompleted projects.
But now the hardest time of the year is here.
The air is clear and warm, an idle breeze
supports the dance of puff ball seeds and insects,
while blossom settles lightly on the grass.
A peaceful backcloth embroidered with lazy birdsong.
That’s when he turns to share his happiness,
and as he turns, remembers she’s not there.
The pack moves in, sensing an easy kill;
he calls her name as he feels their teeth at his throat.
He fights them off as ever by looking back,
recalling times and places that they shared.
Secure from loss or harm while memory lasts,
the past can be relived with small improvements.
His mind returns to Queenstown’s lakeside café,
the steamboat S.S. Earnshaw on the lake;
flying through mountain passes to the sound,
his pleasure heightened by her clear delight.
To Interlaken, Spring flowers in the mountains,
and tea and strawberry gateau in the meadow;
to Istanbul, the clapboard small hotel
with gypsy music playing in the garden.
To camping, Wales, the Isle of Wight, the rain;
so glad to leave they sang, all the way home.
Camping again on sunny Rab when Kate
was three and Yugoslavia still existed.
At Claremont, Michael baking in the kitchen
or later in poetic mood at Brighton;
and Sarah in the garden marshalling
her regiment of dolls and numerous friends.
Holidays shared with extended families:
Broad How at Patterdale, and en Nauzel,
the run-down small chateau with witch-hat turrets
rising from sunflower fields near Puylaurens.
The sunny midge-free April tour of Scotland;
Kyle of Loch Alsh, Achiltibuie, Skye
and Ullapool. Back to the Ceilidh Place
with family to see the New Year in.
New Year again with them in Taormina;
Christmas in Barcelona, several more
in cosy English country cottages.
The stream of memories begins to flood.
The manor house in Prades with its pool
and tennis court! The assault on Canigou;
the drama of the meal with Michelin stars:
a synchronized flourish revealing all the plates.
His mind flits back and forth from scene to scene,
a butterfly in meadows full of flowers,
so many it’s not possible to choose.
Whatever comes will serve as well as any.
Like Lourmarin among the Luberon hills,
with breakfast bread fresh-baked from the local shop;
the shady garden in Ansouis, where they
had tea; the coloured sands of Rousillon.
Their many, many walks on Lakeland fells,
returning to The Mill at Mungrisdale
for Richard and Eleanor’s hospitality;
wonderful food with two at least deserts.
La Residencia, their luxury stay
in Deiya, once the home of Robert Graves.
The tennis coach, George Lindsay, brought a lad,
it was the young Nadal, one day to play.
Their tour in northern Spain from Santander
to the Pyrenees, staying in paradors;
Granada, driving through the Alpujarras,
to Yegen, Gerald Brenan’s hideaway.
Italy, touring lakes and mountains; staying
at Villa Fiordalisso on Lake Garda,
(not knowing it had been Mussolini’s love nest).
Limone with its graveyard full of Segalas.
Opera in Verona’s coliseum:
the wind tried hard to carry off the set.
The Grand Hotel in the crotch of Como, just
across the lake from Villa Carlotta’s gardens.
Ravello, the Amalfi coast, Capri,
Vesuvius and Herculaneum.
They hired a motor boat and went to sea,
and reached the Galli Isles, but missed Nurejev.
He regrets his irritation at her lack
of navigation skills; and sometimes his
neglect of her requests to not drive fast:
the schedule often was a shade ambitious.
Remember Boulouris and the Cote d’Azure;
the meals they had in Les Eyziers de Tayac
of five and seven courses, twice a day,
by far the best week’s food he can remember.
Cyclists and roller skaters showing off
near ‘Muscle Beach’. The waist-deep blue lagoon
in Raratonga: living a psychedelic
dream as they swam through cartoon-coloured shoals.
Then home to familiar sights and sounds; their own
back garden, where they tried to keep alive
the plants they’d bought at Wisley. She always claimed
no other garden centre measured up.
His life was always intertwined with work;
a separate strand from which she was excluded.
Holidays were the milestones in their life.
Could he have made more time for her and the children?
It’s not clear how. His choices still seem right,
and anyway he did the best he could.
The paths not taken scarcely matter now;
he’s few regrets about the chosen one.
Moving to catch the final rays of the sun,
he’s smiling, weeping, thankful, wounded, lost.
As blossom starts to turn from pink to brown
he sits and waits, ready for the next attack.
