We were close, real close.
Friends to the core.
Though we only numbered half a dozen,
We felt as strong as an army.
Swaggering along that road we knew as home,
Sometimes lounging on the swings
Swigging bottled beer that had been handed
Through the hedge of the pub car park
By the Publican's son.
Or just sitting on the grass...that was best,
With my sweetheart's head on my chest.
We'd chase clouds through the afternoon
Forming shapes in our minds.
Sometimes the spell would break
With the cracking of an awful joke,
And I would pull a packet of cigarettes
From my breast pocket and hand them around
Whilst eyeing the passing traffic
For mobile informers of our habit
To stern unaware parents.
We would sit in a circle like red Indians
And blow blue smoke away on the summer wind.
It did not matter then...we were young
And thought ourselves only addicted to life.
Levity and the passion of adolescence
Would occasionally slip into the uneasy seriousness
Which lurked behind talk of our futures
And my heart would lurch with the thought
That we would not spend them together.
A million tears of sorrow and mirth
Have passed since then.
Some of us are gone now, sitting on the grass
In that circle forever with God.
Some went off and saw the world
But still they returned to the village years later.
Me, I never left for I always reckoned
That I would never find a place
I love as much as here
And my imagination
Is all the excitement I need.
