On the other side
of the mountain,
birds fell from the sky
like stones,
people walked alone
in strange zig-zag patterns
pale and distraught,
and of course
everything was black and white
like an old movie,
except this would
have no happy ending.
Then like a bolt from the blue
– if there had been any blue –
it dawned on me,
this was for real.
This was my home town.
ii.
I found a little shop
that sold cups without saucers
run by a man
that I thought was my father,
he said that he’d known me
before the disaster,
but now we were all on our own.
He gave me a cup by way of
a keepsake,
he said I was suffering from
some kind of heartache,
the cup had a crack
and couldn’t hold anything
now we were all on our own.
iii.
When the colours came back
they came back without blue,
back to a world that was
riven right through
just for an instant,
then all turned to black
but the cup with a crack
which was blue.
Blue is the colour
that I still remember,
as catching my eye
above all the others
when I was a child
beholding the heavens
blue beyond blue
– if there had been any blue –
blue beyond blue
beyond blue.
Better not to wander up Bell Lane
all in bloom,
past the tyre and discarded shoe,
the broken door by the ruined wall
of the imaginary dream house.
Better not to wander
to the archive on the hill
but wander I will,
down corridors half-remembered,
past doors I may not enter
where boxes and cans are stored,
that tell only half a story.
Better not to wander
to a white house made of dust,
but wander I must,
still further, deeper,
to the hub of memory
where in cells as cold as death,
history crumbles to nothing.
Better not to wander
up Bell Lane,
but I’ll wander again,
wander again.