David Chadwick

A poem for the month - September

 

Homecoming?

 

I was born in a small English village

called Upper Heyford. It dozes quietly
in still, green countryside.

It has thatched cottages and stone walls.

It has roses. At the bottom of the hill,
there is a canal with a lock and a rustic towpath.

 

As a child, the name always meant home to me,

in a storybook way. A mythical place
from my other history.

A place I never knew, but might have.

A place from my “What if …?” life.

 

It never lost that feeling

even after I went there again

as a visitor from my real life.

The perfect English village.

 

Now my daughter and her boyfriend

have built a house there.

Serendipity? Or sychronicity?