I have changed the title to “A” ballad rather than “The” because I
realise this poem is far from definitive, others may write their own ballads of
the same subjects, also I may try again. Clearly also, the first stanza owes
something to LP Hartley’s:
“The past is another country; they do things differently there.”
I would like to thank RR (formerly known as LDP) http://ldptonedeaf.blogspot.co.uk/
and LK http://box-elder.blogspot.co.uk/ for their encouragement and support for the
idea behind this ballad, which is I hope a beginning of something more…
Sitges is a town famous for its Bohemian atmosphere and long beach
on the Costa Dorada https://www.onthebeach.co.uk/destinations/spain/costa-dorada/sitges
Finally here is a link to Joe’s book of sonnets Handbook for Explorers with photographs
by Lucy Kempton. It is a deluxe colour edition. A beautiful book visually and aurally
http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/3030400-handbook-for-explorers A second more affordable edition for the
pocket or bag may soon appear…
A Ballad of
Heidi and Joe
First we
must draw a country of the mind,
its maps and
contours, pictures; then agree
to go there.
If it’s anywhere we’ll find
the
explorer’s life, it’s in another country,
a country
with a Sitges and an August sea
and with a
Tunbridge Wells where they’re content
walking both
together on the pavement.
Who swam the
furthest, talked the most, was thinner,
understood
people best is hard to know;
who could
divine an animal’s agenda,
some would
say Heidi, some that it was Joe.
It is a
fact: until just a while ago,
not as some
couples, one leader, one behind,
they walked
both together on the pavement,
crossed over
to the sand and breathed sea air.
Their
sufferings and illnesses seemed past;
the future
like a strong and rusty stair
led upwards
to a landscape set to last;
they did not
know its light was fading fast;
the past in
front of them, their present was behind,
walking both
together on the pavement.
Whole
stories hide here; pictures stun with colour;
trees ebb
like tides at night, by day a-buzz
with
multiples of wing and throat. A cooler
and glasses,
Ipad, he waits to greet us
with maps
and plans, and later on he’ll tweet us
with routes
that he and Heidi have in mind
walking both
together on the pavement,
as if we too
with root and flower could stay
unmindful of
the assassin, changeless summer,
within the
panorama of this day;
not noticing
the sky’s not getting dimmer,
nor
fireflies by right begin to glimmer.
Our shadows
lengthen, leave them both behind,
walking both
together on the pavement.
