First Love, or God in Nature Revealed
Lured by vinegary incense into the chrome shiny chip shop,
percussive fat bubbling darkly in the scorching vat,
we collected our ‘Three penn’th, please” and scurried away
into the tired Market Square strewn with dead cabbage leaves, chewing gum
and carrot tops, a sad cold detritus of the passing of another day.
A gaggle of teddy boys, crepe footed peacocks, displayed their velvet drapes
to a giggle of girls, red kiss-proof lipped and peroxide pony tailed.
Up the High Street we went to the church, pale granite and leaden roof
reflecting and refracting the evening’s fugitive sun,
a quiet elegance of dappled stone and our first chosen sanctuary.
The sharp flint of the wall bit into our ribbed grey legs,
its green moss staining our once polished shoes, but contented we sat
as Helios drove his fiery chariot far into the West,
and the dying sun fell behind the distant Abbey's pastel silhouette.
A barn owl, flash of white against the yews’ nocturnal green,
flew low into the shadowy dusk searching for prey,
or for a wandering soul to guide through Hades’ gloomy labyrinthine paths.
The waning moon rose pale above the squat Norman tower,
and I gazed up into the chill of the darkening sky,
a celestial carpet embroidered now with a host of bright gilded stars.
The church clock struck eight, its sonorous tolling a solemn curfew
to proclaim the ending of our twilight freedom,
unwelcome summoning home to school books left abandoned,
white mice unfed and evening tasks not yet done.
But I walked through those dull suburban streets head in air,
suffused with the glory that had reached down to me from the sky.
The moon’s fragile light tipped corroded gutters with silver,
weeds like luminous gold ferns glistened beneath bleak sodium lamps,
and all those stars were a million tiny candles
lit by the breath of God.
Absorbed into a mystery,
I held out my arms to the universe,
to a chaste and perfect unity.
I was a girl in love
with my very first love,
and the world was born anew,
to be for ever sanctified by this divine beauty.
we collected our ‘Three penn’th, please” and scurried away
into the tired Market Square strewn with dead cabbage leaves, chewing gum
and carrot tops, a sad cold detritus of the passing of another day.
A gaggle of teddy boys, crepe footed peacocks, displayed their velvet drapes
to a giggle of girls, red kiss-proof lipped and peroxide pony tailed.
Up the High Street we went to the church, pale granite and leaden roof
reflecting and refracting the evening’s fugitive sun,
a quiet elegance of dappled stone and our first chosen sanctuary.
The sharp flint of the wall bit into our ribbed grey legs,
its green moss staining our once polished shoes, but contented we sat
as Helios drove his fiery chariot far into the West,
and the dying sun fell behind the distant Abbey's pastel silhouette.
A barn owl, flash of white against the yews’ nocturnal green,
flew low into the shadowy dusk searching for prey,
or for a wandering soul to guide through Hades’ gloomy labyrinthine paths.
The waning moon rose pale above the squat Norman tower,
and I gazed up into the chill of the darkening sky,
a celestial carpet embroidered now with a host of bright gilded stars.
The church clock struck eight, its sonorous tolling a solemn curfew
to proclaim the ending of our twilight freedom,
unwelcome summoning home to school books left abandoned,
white mice unfed and evening tasks not yet done.
But I walked through those dull suburban streets head in air,
suffused with the glory that had reached down to me from the sky.
The moon’s fragile light tipped corroded gutters with silver,
weeds like luminous gold ferns glistened beneath bleak sodium lamps,
and all those stars were a million tiny candles
lit by the breath of God.
Absorbed into a mystery,
I held out my arms to the universe,
to a chaste and perfect unity.
I was a girl in love
with my very first love,
and the world was born anew,
to be for ever sanctified by this divine beauty.
Naomi
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