I don’t have to go back
to my childhood, there’s nothing there
I still want: but of miracles
left to me, I’d like to restore a look
I once wore and release it in the air.
That year I found painting and hiking
I read all night long, struggling
with my place in the universe. Climbing
rock by rock to the Knife Edge
and taking in the aged panorama.
I fell in love almost daily: everyone
was enthralling if you truly looked at them.
Each had a mother, a few had lost
their fathers early. They too heard shouts
in their houses. How dear they are,
even if amour’s hammered out of them.
Those faces: rugged and turgid
as they’ve become, if they’ve endured,
a boy or girl inside still calls,
Come back, come back and save us.