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"Confidence is a very strange thing. I just don't know how to put my finger on it. It dissolves so easily, is destroyed by sensitivity. Yet sensitivity is almost the prerequisite of the writer.  I was amazed to realise that I wrote this poem some fifteen years ago.  A lot has changed since then, not least my body and my ability to power walk up and down hills as I did then!  Still, at the time, it was a valid testament to my honest feeling one day - a day when my wife was visiting her parents some thousand kilometers away in another country." - Allen Ansell




The wind of change blows,
through the unfurling leaves.
Raising, silently,
steam – from moist sunlit soil
that only feels this heat once each year.
A light mist fogs the slanting columns
of Spring sunlight, and all could
be well with the world ~
only,
of course,
the world is far from well.

It is an illusion then … like all things …
something and nothing … there and not there …

Warm balmy air to sweeten your breath
fills this tunnel through the trees,
and soon it will become a refuge from
the relentless Summer heat….
I feel your breath tickle my cheek,
your fingers tingling my neck,
trailing through my hair ~
only,
of course,
you are nowhere near me.

It is an illusion then … like all things …
something and nothing … there and not there …

Clean fresh air fills my lungs as I pace,
panting my way up this hill …
it’s just the same gas that we breath daily -
the spoken air: that once fueled
the lungs of the proud Robin …
that mixed inside the frog’s croak …
that bore your sweet kiss ~
only,
of course,
it is far from being fresh.

It is an illusion then … like all things …
something and nothing … there and not there …

My virile mind maintains it’s old lie,
my heart boom-booms to my step …
for I am young, and fit, and full of vim …
Legs of iron, lungs like silk,
going on for ever – like the sun -
doing exercise ~
only,
of course,
I am far from being young.

It is an illusion then … like all things …
something and nothing … there and not there …

So I stop and turn back, without you
I fear my mortality …
an old, tired man, who power walks each day,
but is fearful without
a plastic identity card,
to tie on my toe ~
so that ...
someone ...
could tell you that I am ... 'me'.

It's no illusion then ... the cold hand of reality …
something and nothing ... there but not there.



© Allen Ansell 2022