I walked with William Butler Yeats
Among the children at my school
And heard them tell of unfamiliar days
And watched them run and play and fall
At sixty now my beard is grey
And all my knowledge washed and wan
The tilting milk float and the swill
Are now no more, forgotten, gone.
The garden where we planted seeds,
The nettles scythed beside the field,
The goals we scored, the rounders run,
A final summer signed and sealed.
We fled into the future then
Among the mighty hopes of youth
And searched for hope and fevered love
In search of treasure that is Truth.
But that was long ago and this
Is but a passing moment still,
As if the wind a glancing kiss,
As if a life might bend to will.
So now I look to climb the hill
Where my first memory was born,
But holding hands with no-one now
The night is long and far from dawn.
© IMB (June, 2020)
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