When the Way to Mermaid Island Was Clear

I once saw you

a free young girl with flowers in her hair,

on the way of enchantment

where dreams came true.

 

That vast seaway,

Cornish coves and seagull choirs,

English heavens untouched

by industries turmoil confusions.

 

Our secret place was Mermaid Island,

across the sands to an unknown land,

where only three trees grew

and no one knew.

 

I made a vow back then. It was never to revisit it

because time never does the same thing twice.

Whatever the far horizons of the future tell us,

I say, what you know, you know.

 

I have now become some living flesh, in a horror of ageing,

and I cannot conceive of a thing, divine or human,

that would leave these memories

on the slab of dissection for maggots’ …….

 

Who of the young will now know,

what we knew,

when the way to Mermaid Island

was clear.

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