Why it took so long


You were otherwise occupied
and so, in a thistledown way, was I.
Also living in the wrong town
and not done with the lunacies of youth
or the worse ones of middle age.
There were children, of course,
taking priority in energy, money, love,
and books to write and much mellowing
and tenderising of the heart to be done
and all the impedimenta of history,
fantasy, expectation to ditch,
and the fire wall to take down,
and the barbed-wire brambles to snip,
and the breast plate to strip,
and the look-out to drug,
and one's mother to silence,
and one's cover to blow,
and one's heart to risk.

Even so, when my waist was slim
and my hair still brown,
where were you?


by Diana Hendry