CONTRASTING TIMES

Autobiographical, in verse....

How were we to know
in the old days of ignorance
when the winds blew hard past the old coal yard
and the nightingale cheered us
with his song,
how were we to know
that one day like magic
from an old top hat
we would meet in the rain
and kiss
and touch
and be strangers together?

and before then, before the drone
of new years wiped away the old
and the world was grey
like it used to be
and I never guessed
in my chaos of ignorance
how a day or week or year might be
how could anyone have known
the magic that was to come?

And when I ran
down Buchanan hill
to the park where I used to swing
or slide
or spin on the roundabout,
giddy like boys are,
grey shorts and tousled hair,
and then back home for tea
with the old valve radio
telling the same old boring news,
how could I have known
there was a girl in another town
having her tea
in the company
of her own old valve radio,
and that the girl was you?

Or when the sun shone
on summer streets and the old nightingale
fresh from nowhere sang his song to me,
how could he have known,
chirruping madly
that one day the scruffy kid
in the old steel house would,
seeking nothing,
find the lady of his dreams?

But he did, sad bird, he did,
so save your songs
and dance a little dance for me.