Early memories that stick in our minds are significant. They stay with us for a reason. Perhaps for us to remember them fondly or maybe they are glimpses of what our future holds for us.
I often have flashbacks from childhood of things I enjoyed doing and to this day I still do. Growing up London I loved going to parks and other green spaces where I could look at trees and lakes. I would collect leaves and grasses and paste them lovingly into a scrap book where I would catalog them along with descriptions.
My other fascination was with birds. Seeing a small red-breasted Robin at Christmas time, especially if it snowed, was thrilling to me. I also remember the excitement of going to Trafalgar Square as a child with my mother. She would buy these little containers of corn from vendors so we could feed the pigeons. The sheer joy of having them land on your shoulders, sometimes your head, and feed directly from your hand was exciting to a child.
In the warm morning air I walked along the beach. My footsteps the only ones visible after the previous night’s storm. Kicking through seaweed and the empty shells of horseshoe crabs I let my mind wander back to you. It was here we built our love on a foundation of sand, ignoring the risks. We’d lay in sunshine as it darkened our skin and tingled our noses. At sunset, when night devoured the day, we made love under a moonlit, starry sky. Our promises were made to be broken. Time stood still as we constructed sandcastles dedicated to a summer love that neither of us wanted to end. Inevitably it did and we went our separate ways.
So long ago but in space in time I sit thousands of feet above the sea and I am still able to conjure an image of you.
Time of no consequence on this summer afternoon. Reclining comfortably on the cool grass, my back against the shady oak. Around me gossamer wings of dragonflies work overtime returning my incredulous stare.
Birdsong fills the air as buttercups wave in the breeze. My mind wanders wherever it wishes and I remember childhood family walks through these fields. Being the youngest I’d sit atop my father’s shoulders. My siblings carrying the makings of a picnic our mother would set on a tartan blanket. After, we would play hide and seek and make daisy chains to wear. Happy as larks we would run until exhausted and collapse in a heap under a tree.
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings. Unrecognizable at first but then as I stir it becomes clearer. The beautiful sound of a summer lark completing my reverie.
Shivering, the young woman stepped outside pulling on the toggle of her duffle coat shielding herself from the blistering wind Just after five and darkness had already fallen as she headed west on the tree-lined avenue
An old man sat quietly in the corner of the café Staring into his bottomless cup of coffee Ignoring hunger pains, twiddling with the hole in the left finger of his old gloves His head filled with memories suppressed
An elegant woman sat upright with a fixed smile He, a puffed up blowhard, at the microphone Commanding attention with his loud voice and phony diatribe as kiss-asses drooled Her body ached and her mind lived in the past
A lifetime ago two kids had clung to each other Inseparable, joined at the hip, in love She from the house on the hill, privileged He from the other side of the railroad tracks His intellect and her beauty, a winning combo
The young woman saw him in the cafe, head lowered It had been a long time passing before her call to him Entering he looked up at her, eyes clouded, and she went to him Her father embraced her and she clung to him tightly He needed to know his one true love was dying
Bjorn is hosting D'Verse Poets and has prompted us with a form called Cadralor. The cadralor is a poem of 5, unrelated, numbered stanzaic images, each of which can stand alone as a poem, is fewer than 10 lines, and ideally constrains all stanzas to the same number of lines. Imagery is crucial to cadralore: each stanza should be a whole, imagist poem, almost like a scene from a film, or a photograph. The fifth stanza acts as the crucible, alchemically pulling the unrelated stanzas together into a love poem. By “love poem,” we mean that your fifth stanza illuminates a gleaming thread that runs obliquely through the unrelated stanzas and answers the compelling question: “For what do you yearn?”
Image by Please Don't sell My Artwork AS IS from Pixabay
