! ! Why Should I Take Your Time...? Poem by Michael Shepherd

Why should I take your time
describing in loving detail
the day so many years ago
when I smelt the air on a cliff-top –
sunlight, stubby wind-blown salt flowers,
still glitter of the sea, etc –
and knew freedom, liberation,
the blessing of landscape,
the magic of perspective…
all in the unfamiliar, so innocent, cliff-top air
that touched immortal on the cheek…?

I guess it’s like an expensive gift that you give
without unwrapping its elaborate protection;
inside, something both banal, and magical:

not the memory; but the memory
of being, just being; just being a child;
when the world spoke of itself
in every magic detail, unwrapped itself and
with so much to say…

the magic of memory; being, not quite forgot;
offered to you, not wrapped by me,
(watching your face as you open it…)
but, from yourself?