When I was a grown up

         When I was a grown  up

 They say I’m a kid at heart

And maybe that is true

But it did not come about

By living through

One long Golden Age of halcyon days

  When I was a grown up

  It wasn’t like that at all,

I first became a grown up

By learning that lots of things are important

More important than the most important things

Which have to be discarded to make room

For the important things

So choosing between the many more important things

And the few most important things

I chose the many –safety in numbers,

When I was a grown up

Everything was serious,

So I didn’t laugh a lot

But did neither did  I weep.

I wasn’t moved to compassion or joy

Life was just serious

For the sake of being serious

That seemed to be important

When I was a grown up

I seem to recall

That my memory was poor;

I forgot the struggles of my youth,

What it was to weep over unattainable virtues

What it was to fall so often

That the ground was my home

And the dust my dinner.

Towards the end of my time as a grown up

I started hearing voices.

It happens to some and sends them mad

But it was the beginning of sanity for me

For they finally convinced me I was mad

And that my life wasn’t working

I saw that in my stifled Britness

And my brittle stiffness

All I did was knock things over

And break things

Other people’s hopes

Other people’s dreams

Break things

Other people

I had to do a lot of turning round

It made me dizzy and sick

And realising that my self made boundaries

Were not real made me afraid

But there were no dragons

On the blank bits of the map

Just me finding new land beginning

To find the thrill of adventure

In another land that was this one

Long ago

Far away

All grown up

All ground down

Everything gone

All ground up

Till everything shone

I never want to be old again

I never want to be young

All I want is to be new

All I want is to be new

                                       WILF 2009-08-10