For Gavin Bantock (B.1939) Poem by Len Webster

Our lives could have been parallel tracks
Or loops and circles whirled
Within a portrait of time.

Nine years earlier than me,
You were born not so far from here
And you crossed the track once, you wrote,
To visit a friend and thanked his mother
For having you,
Causing laughter by saying that,
The very words I was taught to say
And had left dormant until today
As I captured in your poem
A memory from the days of steam
When the world hissed and scolded with its power.

So, you are retired now,
Set free from the wheel of fatigue,
Able at last to settle your thoughts,
A preparation for the final settlement of all.

And you, like me, must wonder
Where the time went
And what happened to the land
Of our childhoods, spent separately,
On either side of the chasm of war.


(Written as a reply to Gavin Bantock's 'Thank You For Having Me',
included in his collection JUST THINK OF IT, Anvil Press,2002)