A
child skipping jump on the quay at the Mill,
With
parted legs jump, soft-footed in April,
And
the lovers on the bridge, sweet soft women's mouths
Pressing
jowls of men, in jeans or loose trousers, youths
Packed
in punts. And the masons on the bridge
Pause
as they lift white stone to dress the face of the ridge
Of
the balustrade, to imagine an actorish man
(Uxorious
to a self-possessed blonde) as well as they can,
Back
in the hotel room, making love; they laugh,
Turn
back to the mortar. Ducks rise over trees, the chaff
Of
mixed men and women floats over. A boy with a shiny red face
Attentively
wipes some beer from his sweetheart's sleeve.
The
place I remember assignments of old at, by moon and water,
The
same acts of living, the same weir-splashed happiness after:
But
today I sit here alone - with my daughter rather,
Who
critically watches the child skipping jump on the waterfall quay,
And
we after go back to the car. I am dumb, and silent she.
I
see the spring love on the bridge for her: for me decay,
Or
at most the wry pretension, 'Well, we have had our day!'
I
do not want to have had my day: I do not accept my jade,
Any
more than the grey old horse we meet in the street,
His
shaggy stiff dragged aside for a smart sports blade
And
his smart sports car: yet that's no doubt my fate
As
the water flows by here each year, April to April,
With
a soft-footed child skipping jump on the quay at the Mill.
Reprinted with
permission (forgiveness actually, because I had not asked before putting this
up!) from Selected Poems, Anvil Press, 1980.
