1963 Looking Back

Memories let their June days fall apart
and leave behind the rains which rushed
rivers into torrents. Its just the sun we see
and the turn of the landscapes into harvest-tide fields.

Forgotten the tears, like the sudden storms.
Looking back finds only days when everyone’s Dad
was a war hero and cloudless flew the skies
with stories of the Spitfire – the circling Cessna
becoming a Lysander flown dangerously far
behind enemy lines; while at ground level
Airfix figures re-fought desert conflicts
across the shadows of children playing in the sand.

The spell breaks. A voice from a future the past
didn’t foresee refocuses the daydream into
the eyes of a child now grown – a daughter
in young adulthood stands among her words
- who will look back too, on June days
as if no rains ever came to take them away.

poem by Richard Douglas Pennant
Added by Poetry Lover
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