Showing my Workings

I am trying to see if I can write a small poem about the two earliest memories I have - two windows in time that opened.  They are ones I have probably mentioned before in my blog.  The earliest is a moment on Hampstead Heath with my young father, by the Pond. I must have been about three years old. And the second was when I was about 4 years old, in Sheffield, playing shop with a little friend in her garden of soot-blackened stones.

Its not that I remember them now, but I remember remembering them over the years, if that make sense.  I don't know why a window suddenly opens on Hampstead Heath and stays with me.  But the reason I remember the blossom moment is that seeing the blossom on stone, and being surrounded by blossom, in the lovely May garden filled me full of a sudden and unexpected joy.  Though it took me some decades to find out why I had felt that joy in that soot blackened spring garden. I believe it was a reminder of Eden, of the paradise garden our first parents so tragically lost.

And its a joy that I hope lies ahead of all of us, right here on the earth - a joy that will go on forever.

Anyway, I would like to try and pin the moments down in a poem as best I can and I thought I would show my workings.  It began as this, and continues to the finished version:

May was the blossom

on blackened stone

shining in steel city

we played shops

with all that the Spring garden had provided

It shone in steel city

the blossom on blackened stone

lifting my heart

a glimpse of paradise

while we played shops with all that May provided

earlier another window in time opens

the Pond at Hampstead Heath

my young father holds my hands

as we watch the Pond yachts.

Shining white in Steel city 

on blackened stone

blossom lifted my heart

while we played shops

with all that Spring had grown

too young to know this was a glimpse of lost paradise

pond yachts on the Heath

stay with me too

and my father's hand in mine

And I think this one is the finished version, as close as I can get:

Two Windows in Time

by me

Shining white in Steel city

on blackened stone

the blossom lifted my heart

while we played shop

with all that Spring had grown.

An earlier window opens

on Hampstead Heath

my father - so young -

holds my hand while

pond yachts sail along.

Of course, there is a better version of this in the ether somewhere, but this is the best I can do.

While Captain Butterfly has resigned from his volunteer work for Sussex Search and Rescue, after years of service, he has not resigned from fund-raising for them, so he left very early, with his usual sandwich lunch, to do some marshalling, for which SUSSAR will get paid.

I plan to attend the meeting at the Kingdom Hall in pixel form, via Zoom. But I am at least back in person at the Thursday night meeting, as Col is there to help me get dressed and chauffeur me.

I am wondering whether to get out on the balcony for half an hour of sunshine and finish my Watchtower study out there.  It turns out that what i have been identifying as Thrift on the balcony is something else.  I have forgotten its name, but it would explain why it kept flowering all through the Winter which no balcony Thrift has done before.