Now and Then (The Calling)

And every now and

then I go back to what, perhaps

it seems I can't recall although

the calling comes.

The neighbouring 'Holdens', he

pipe tobacco stained,

and Churchillian with stick and she

grey and ruddy cheeked had

a neice about the age of

me who gran said

she had invited up

for tea and as

the clock ticked closer to the time

fear and dread like the wind chime

began to sing and so

in gum boots out the back

I sloped off quick, quick

up into the wild.

Passing horse chestnut

whose branches I knew

and tumbled shed where

rusty moped sat, perhaps

still sits, through tall grass

into No Man's Land

over the goat's graveyard and

up to the top where

fields glimpse and

the bank of the railway line sits.

Even now I climb down

into the den, a trench we'd

covered over in the ditch

which hidden well with turf

could scarcely be seen.

I crouched in darkness spying through the makeshift thatch.

Shafts of light lit up a muddy ledge

where a silver tin with a rusty medal in

sat next to a sheep skull and

crouching, waiting I almost fell asleep

though fear awoke when calling I

could hear. My granndad 'Sim'

his voice is growing clear -

calling my name to the open air

beneath a canopy of oaks and elms

that covered there and heard

nothing but the wind in reply, with

a pretty brown haired girl stood idly by.

I sat. I sit and watch

her hair blow in the wind

and what was left of his.

I did not move. Held my breath.

They stood confused, he repeating my name

and though he called for me

scanning the grass, as perhaps he'd done in the war,

from his face it strangely seemed

he called out, was looking

for something else; something more.

Eventually as we all must, they gave up

and turned back. I watch her, out of reach

disappear and sat alone until the sun went down,

grew colder, still and dark.

I skulked back once

I suppose I was sure she'd gone,

though knowing the girl

I never spoke to would

remain with me.