The Gentle Lion in my Garden

by Carol Wolrich

Email: carol.a.w@blueyonder.co.uk

 

Pleasant as ripe peaches; this warm forever

day. As I drift in and out of radio thoughts,

tuned in to some cheerful talking frequency.

Here is no tomorrow; only meanderings through

the ordered past - where steam trains ran

on time, and 4 o'clock stopped for tea.

 

I picture country churches, musty pews. Gentle

games of tennis, just for fun, when the world was

amateur. I dream of pine-woody smells and Camberley

at nine, heady with the scent of bygone air, fresh

and free of multiple motors. I lament at the suburban

decline swarming over Slough. Long, long before now.

 

A literary lion came to my garden today, chuckling

through the soft summer leaves. Between two and

three, he read me his poetry across the waft of

petunias, until the importunate plea of the news.

The lion has gone. But, with a strongly adorable

laugh in his hand, Betjeman lives on.

 

 ©2004 Carol Wolrich

 

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