Adulthood

It's all a bit nostalgic, just like it should be.

Not exactly dancing, she moves through sepia years

Frame by frame through shades of lily

The chords progress us down through endless garden

Paths 'neath little ivy doorways

And a little way from free, he takes his photographs

And frame by frame he captures

A flower here, a shaded eyelid there

Streams are flowing past beneath

His boots, her barely landing footfalls

See the little boats in otter harbours

Sailing now in puffs of lilac afternoon

And not one of them a destined landing

Not one of them a voyage that isn't

A dying Summer's day.

Remembering now is wine and fabrication

Nothing really beautiful can survive

Through day and and grey roads to walk

Hoping only, at the end, we'll find the start again.

We'll write in tones of despairing adulthood

The poems we should have spoken in our joy

Now it's just the photographs remain

The garden and the maiden ere the fall.