woke up old with cold bones creaking,
bright knives cut through shuttered blinds;
gasped and breathed, remembered, rose
and crept out from the dark to find
a bag sat packed; the words came back:
"Come see me then, if you're alive."
the mist hung down from cloud and sky;
a sun sat brave but weak and low;
the trees so straight and tall remembered
summers young and long ago.
the engine spat and growled and every
tread declared its vigour still,
and soon the trees, the sun and mist
were lost behind the valley hill.
on i sailed through burning winds
and grey and smokey white-lined seas.
i thought of all i'd say and all you'd ask
and what the past would mean,
and all those summer times we climbed
and hid among the valley trees.