How slow the days pass,
creep like this river as it slides
slovenly under its stone hoop
the floating leaves like pencil shavings.
There is too much time. John posts a poem
on being blazered up for school.
I read it, smell new shoes, remember
my High School badge, the braid, the Latin tag.
‘We sow, we water but it’s God
that gives life to the seed’
(‘and pays the compound interest’) Father quipped
but I was young, I didn’t understand.
Nor did I know how long
that clear, untrodden life of mine might stretch,
be like this river, nosing its way somewhere
with me in tow.
(‘Deus dat incrementum’, sometimes rendered as ‘God gives the compound interest’, is inscribed under the coat of arms of Warrington, my home town).
