Youth

I

A fierceness snakes through youth, a red-brown thread
Distinguishes �lan from old age dread.
While gaunt Methuselah was pale as death
Us ruddy faced viveurs draw stronger breath.

For while the elders wise may be and calm
("We very seldom come to any harm")
Their mute frustration shines behind their face
The stories past, the end, the finished race.

Meanwhile, through trains waylaid along the line
By engineers liberal with their time
Through carriages the temperature of Hades
And ladies dressed as men, and men as ladies

Youth takes the balanced path, enthused and wild
The laughs returned, the day all undefiled
The best is made of problems small yet real
And joy pursued with undiluted zeal.

Witness the days where Youth distils its fun,
So poorly started, stumblingly begun.
But growing from a sad-dramatic birth
An evening short of light but tall in mirth.

II

As a Scilly Isle gently becomes
An opening batsman, by Thickening,
So the score builds, and the happiness.
Bands of plummeting raindrops, Liquid Leaves
Made purposeful, skirt the edge of fear.
Nonchalantly, a hundred and a half becomes
Half a millennium, and in the folds of the
Accumulation, we meet the Past.

"The left-hander scored as many runs
As anyone at The Oval except Hutton".
The haunting 364 remains, the beautiful past.
But disconcerting is the selfish past.
The pale sceptre of a lack of energetic
Fiercesomeness. Where the landed gentry
Mount pictures on their ceiling
While through mud, dysentery and death
The peasants, those sub-humans, get nothing.
Why would one need more than the space
Under the sweeping staircase, steps leading
Noplace but to money's circular argument.
Only for the pale ghosts, spectres of mist
Quoting stale English: 'As it was
In the beginning, is now, and ever shall be
World without end. Amen.'

Nowadays, those very same peasants,
Suddenly with ability to wealth,
Walk the floors of the Almighty Lords.
And throw litter in their gardens, and
Are terrorised by their monkeys.
And they walk in their mazes.

Resolute Youth once again triumphs
Where the pale ghosts of past ages stutter.
And fall.
For a maze has never been a happy
Experience, until now. Where the lead
Is temporary and calm. Foes beaten, fire called about.

And later, with the orange skin of Longleat
Peeled back to reveal more damageable fun,
The opener continues, full of youth and joy
That lack in prematurely older Vaughan.
The fierceness of youth is preserved
In unlikely places. Hussain, but for the body.
Stewart, unchanged energy. And a solitary
Lumberjack, leading us to victory.

III

Sunday comes.
Mist enshrouds.
On the train.
Through the clouds.
One to start.
Then to two
Doubling world
Ever new.
Ten arrive,
Then alight,
Sunny day,
Happy plight.
Distant sounds
. Willow smacks.
Leather crunch.
Little lacks.
Twenty six
Forty five
Flintoff's flair
Youthful jive.
Sixty three
Eighty eighty
Nineties come.
But too late.

Mistimed thwack
Dented pride.
Final wicket
Without guide.
Then declared
Afternoon
Curry time.
"See you soon"

IV

The afternoon
Will usually be
A quiet time of day
A drowsy haze
Envelopes life
And takes the drive away.
This afternoon
Youth strikes again
With wisdom close behind
While Bicknell dies
There's Harmison
Who'll pace and danger find.
Destructs the in
Destructible
With ever glowing glee.
And while in debt

South Africans
Lose several before tea.

V

Now, finally, the light and the impetus
Start to flow away from me. I may be youngish,
But I'm no longer young. When a new friend,
3 in 1991, can say 'In my youth',
I become Methuselah. My enthusiasm dampened
By darkness, and end of days, and Pollock.
Not so much as a red-brown streak as
A ginger gash in England's energy.
And how do I presume?
Suddenly I am no more than Prufrock
And I need to find youth's infectious choler.
The man with the photo-lens, he seems
Enthusiastic, the streak still running through him.
And I slowly catch it, before agedly
Being invited by a pimp. Or something.

Back at Paddington, we sit cross legged on
The floor, gazing up at architecture of the young
In ages past. My crossed legs seem a little less
Flexible than most. The night is drawing in,
And I'm not as young
As I used to think I was.

VI

Back on the train
The daytime dies
The last post sunset
In its eyes.

Near to the end
Of this explore
Still just as fun though
As before.

Better than all
And with good weather
Worth twice as much
When altogether.

David and Matthew
And Steph, Mo and Ed
Chloe, two Alexes
Shula- all said.

Oldest of all
By a week or two
But Matthew was born
While the Toby was new.

Injection of youth
To the middle-aged me
A happier version
In vision, to see.

VII

When all is said and rhymed
And disappeared into the mist
Of obscure past, that future people
Have mostly forgotten, how will we
Be remembered? Probably not at all
But if we are, how should we like to be known?
As the figure, 364? As the event, Flintoff,
Bludgeoning his way to history? As a part
Of a family, or socially adept.
Or even just happy?

If History judges us like the owners
Of Longleat House, we will have lost
Lots. We will have forgotten to
Remember what's around us, even when
We're expected to pretend to be
Pale, ghostly, conformist.
So, as we are young, as we are fierce,
As we still have energy and bite,
Don't only look at the world around
(Though looking is a start)
Don't only shrug and turn away
(Though deciding is a middle)
Use your red-brown thread
To look, and decide, and do.
For then, when we are the pal
Misty ghosts, the frustrated face,
The people who are merely history,
We can be a history we respect.
And while the days are ebbing to their ends
At least our hopes live on inside our friends.

TCH

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