Under the sun-flecked pines
of Culbin Forest
Mid-October
Mid-autumn
I’m with our children
At the rope swing
Near the shrine
For the 18 year old boy
Who went out one summer
And never came home
We come here
Once a month
Whenever we can convince the kids
It’s worth the walk
Not for the shrine
But I always look at it
Rainbow ribbons
And dreamcatchers
Faded photographs
‘Always Be Kind’
My wife is unhappy with me
And I can’t blame her
I’ve been wrong for so long
I can’t remember being right
I think it was Huxley who said
You can’t change the world
But you can change yourself
It’s not for the want of trying
People tell me
I’m difficult
Difficult to get on with
Difficult to like
And that I’m worse
Once they get to know me
My wife would like me to be
More considerate
More caring
More kind
Less angry
I have trouble
Expressing myself
When I am not myself
Though I still do not know
Who or what I am supposed to be
But then
Neither does she
And this is our predicament
Neither recognises the other
Our boys know who they are
Their names
Their friends
Their family
Their home
I am afraid
That one day soon
All this will be theirs
Grown up sorrow
Grown up pain
The feeling that
The fault lies with them
The knowledge that
Things have changed
And will never be
The same again
It’s hard not to hate
The sense of an ending
We never mean to hurt
But sometimes hurting
Is easier
Than loving
Like that Ozon film
That ends as it begins
And begins as it ends
The couple swimming away
Side by side
Into the dimming light
If you told those two kids
On that beach in Sardinia
Sleepy eyed with lust
Embracing in the surf
Like there was no one watching
That it would end this way
If you’d told them
Would they have believed it?
I want to see Sardinia again
With you
I want to go everywhere
With you
I will go anywhere
With you
But your heart is already
Somewhere else
Somewhere new