Old Friends Poem by Len Webster

He hummed the summer of '71.
Having fulfilled an ambition on the West Coast,
he surrendered in Reno and took the Greyhound route back,
watching the sun rise fierce and optimistic in the east.
In touch with the spirit of his universe,
tongue in cheek but alone
where intimacy had been,
Simon & Garfunkel never far away,
he ignored the withdrawal symptoms
in favour of a dream that had carried him so far.
Surprising, then, that as their dotage approached,
they should be back in the old country,
dreaming of companionship and closeness,
he without a footmark for the future,
his friend with two generations to succeed,
each aware of all the cliches and the hopes
sailing with them on this final stage.
Unexpectedly friends then, they remain unexpectedly
closer in their thoughts
as inner voices hum 'Old Friends'.