As I was (not)
going to St. Ives,
I thought I’d think upon my many lives;
the one where I was just a newt;
that season hanging as a fruit;
the lifetime spent waiting for Godot’s what;
the shortest day, as a Mayfly,
that I’d almost forgot;
the long half-of-an-hour trying vainly to survive;
or the hundred and twenty short years when Moses was alive;
and afternoons drinking gaily with my pals;
or night-time flights with a school of owls;
the briefest tenure as a living thing;
or a long, long, life sowing, then harvesting,
then sowing and harvesting,
as my father and son, wife and daughter,
had, and have, for centuries, done.
Having thought upon my many lives,
I then thought about all the times,
I had actually gone
to St. Ives.
TBC
Graeme Sandford 