Sepia And The Deep Sea Poem by David Taylor

I arrived late.
Of course she did not mind,
it was never her way,
and always mine to superimpose
on reality, my own expectations.
But then she always exceeded them.
Even just after her birth
she exceeded expectations
for crying through the night.

A Sepia welcome;
no colourful fuss, just quiet warmth.
How strange, as we walked the less trodden streets
of Oxford that she chooses shady roads
lined with ancient light brown stone.
The only colour the painted yellow lines
telling the cars, that were not there,
they must not stop.
How typical that I might think that strange.

No longer a child, a woman now,
she shows me where she works,
her name outside the door.
We print off a discount voucher
for her preferred restaurant
and continue our walk.
We talk Sepia with a tinge of blue
when they announce they are out of onion rings.

She graduated three years ago,
graduated in self sufficiency too,
she tells me of her plans for an MSc.
Not frothy like a waterfall
or flat like last week’s open bottle of diet coke,
just smooth and flowing
with the confidence of a river
that knows it will find the sea.

We walk back, no plans,
unsure of the route,
but she knows every street and alleyway.
Did I know that Oxford has the most
amazing book store?
Bright eyes flash rays of light
like white arrows in the road.

She leads me to the poetry corner
and we sleuth out the book
I have been trying to find
for the last year, even though
I’ve forgotten the author
and the name of the book.
But she knows the one I’m looking for,
a deep connection in a Sepia memory.