May Poem by jim hogg

I heard you’d never married
From a stranger yesterday
Exactly forty years have passed
Since I last saw your face

The snow was falling lightly
As we walked through Kelvinbridge
One afternoon in wintertime
When we were both still kids


She said you took up nursing
And you’ve built a house at home
While I continued nurturing
The art of letting go

I climbed the pointless mountains
Of ambition and conceit
I fell in love and fell back out
Walked both sides of the street


That tenement is down now
Only memories can frame
That first floor flat in Eldon street
Where I first spoke your name

The vanity of beauty
should forbid me to suggest
you stood alone, without compare
but, I was prejudiced


With Islay in the distance
Ringing softly like a bell
I pretended not to listen
But couldn’t break its spell

They say the sea is bluer
Where the great Atlantic roars
And out of sight means out of mind
It isn’t true, of course.