The First Place I Remember Poem by Richard George

Is a Gower seaside suburb,
Little streets up from the bay
To Clyne Common, built on now,
Hand in hand with my mother
On afternoons before school.
And off Glen Road, a track
Past a monkey-puzzle tree,
Open fields, and through a gate
The churchyard, Gothic angels
With mute swans' wing-spans:
BORN, MARRIED,
REST IN THE LORD.
Out we walked; and down
Along a driveway through woodland
Tangled with the sun
And suddenly - the bustle.
Town, country folded together:
I knew no other.

Brighton, and the Downs
On an empty afternoon; and
I think about the day
My mother dies, and I shall walk
Up from the sea, little streets
To the edge of nothingness.