Pilgrimage

(14/10/96)

There is no going back.

Algae paints the signpost,
moss greens the road,
youth's dreams crumble
like burned pages in the hand
whose fragile stories shine
upon the blackened page.

The flame of childhood died;
only a wax stain remains,
the songs and laugher ringing
from bright summer fields
are dreams .. just dreams.
The beginning moulders,
gossamer skeletons shudder
in dry winds, ghost towns
of a different age.

Memories bruise the flesh,
cling in skin cracks,
arpeggiate in
the mind's great hall.
Places have no being,
body prints fade excruciatingly
down a one-way street.

Do not go back.

Ken Osborne

If you have any comments on this poem Ken Osborne would like to hear from you: ken@osbo.freeserve.co.uk