July

On this day
Ninety eight years back
From the womb of my grandmother
The birth of my father.

The grass is very green in the park.
For a third of a century
The trees have been growing
Chestnut and conker,
Birch and green holly
Larches and cedars
Service and beech;
And I take it are bigger than when
I lived just down the hill.

With my father in mind
I recall, not him,
Dead these forty eight
Circumambulations of the sun,
But others.

All is very green
There has been
Much rain.

Up the hill lived one
Not long deceased.
I recall
Dust around the
Nearby church spire;

And while performing widdershins
Around not that but
The old wooden shelter,
I think about Herrick and Coleridge,
Marvell and Housman,
And Coventry Patmore
Who shat more.