Only
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"How the memories of One’s childhood come to mind in a moments reflection on a Summer’s day – maybe seventy years later! Our choir school was housed in a Manor House in Northampton and I moved there with the school as a boarder after it left Bayswater in London. We sang our little hearts out at the adjoining church. Sadly, the paths on which I trod are no longer in existence – as far, that is, as Google Earth shows. A long ‘another story’." - Allen Ansell The only child slowly walks pathways Once stepped upon by Anne Boleyn. The gravel barely rustles or crackles Beneath his young plimsoled feet. (Close where the rouge and blanc roses Were co-planted so to meet.) Reflecting (As maybe she herself so did) How sweet the scent of the Purple Pathway-lining Lavendula freeze. Alone, apart from her shadow presence, He is unsuspecting the unsettling effect Of a sudden temperate Summer breeze Weaving, and waving the peach-like fuzz Of his virginal pink boyhood cheeks, It somehow now evokes new and vital senses: Sending tingles and ripples from head to toe, A rising to the sensitive vellus hairs Upon the back of his lightly suntanned neck. Was that a spectral woman over there Passing through the corner break Of the bounding, surrounding, greenwood hedge? Was that an Admiral Red flouncing, and announcing Joyous life through this Indian Summer’s Warmly unaccustomed perfumed air? For once he did not feel alone – In this the old orchard garden Of his choral boarding school. Here he could escape the loneliness, The onlyness, of his isolated being: Surrounded solely by the friendly Spirits, Who listened to his Sunday soprano renderings, Whilst Ruffled, cassocked, scrubbed, Angelic faced, and much practised, he A Soloist, only. © Allen Ansell 2023
Thoughtful and wonderful poem.
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