"O WORDS ARE POOR RECEIPTS FOR
WHAT TIME HATH STOLE AWAY"

The summer sky
tried me on to see

if it fit
or I fitted it.

It was not used to being
a 7 year old boy.

I quite liked the exchange
to have clouds for eyes

birds flying
though all my thoughts

wearing a rainbow
in my hair.

To have a heart
that shone like the sun.

The summer of '63
ran about my bedroom

looked out windows
ran down stairs

three at a time
kicked a ball against a wall

swopped comics
marbles and conkers

recited "I remember, I remember"
to itself

until it could
remember it.

Absolutely loved me Da
being its Da

the kisses of my Ma
the laughter of a brother.

Oh what a thing it was
being human.

I, in due course
was an about-to-be

thunderstorm
clumping about the evening

like hobnail boots
on marble tiles.

Thunder and lightning
the whole works.

I could have gone on
for a forever

chasing horizons
making up the days to come.

But the summer sky
had taken all it could

take of being
a little boy.

So many thoughts
running about a head

that was only just
about 7

so that it fell asleep
and when it awoke

it was no longer me
but itself

the summer of '63.

I too had released
the sky back to the how

it should
and has to be.

My thoughts scattered like birds
by a chance church bell

telling time
its Angelus

or a knell
to end it all.

I still remember all of it
as if

it had really really
happened.