September

The other night I was coming back home after a reading in Bristol and the train was pulling out a station. It was one of those moments when you are not sure which train is moving, yours or the one opposite- then the train I was on jolted and both trains were slowly passing each other. In the carriage window opposite me was a man a little older than myself. He was staring at me as if he recognised me. I thought I might know him but wasn’t sure and turned away. When I looked up again, the carriages were still slowly shunting passed each other, and the man was still staring at me – then I realised it was impossible. I was staring at my own reflection. Trains have always provided the mental space in which to write poetry, and more often than not it’s similar emotions that are evoked, and the lines are about regrets and the brevity of relationships and the constant passing-by of other lives, or about memory, and intense feelings that have slipped away. Here’s one such poem.

I caught a train that passed the town where you lived.
On the journey I thought of you.
One evening when the park was soaking
You hid beneath trees, and all round you dimmed itself
As if the earth were lit by gaslight.
O planet-face!
I can still smell the forest in your neck,
Still taste the wine of your mouth,
And your kisses that fell onto my skin like rain
Still shiver there!
We had faith that love would last forever.

I caught a train that passed the town where you lived.

How many years ago did I write that? Thirty? Even longer? And the person it was about? I knew her over thirty-five years ago. The town was Winchester, the woman an art student I adored when I’d lived there. She loved horses rather than poets. Her pillowcases smelt of marigolds.