Leasehold OR Reunion with Ghosts

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

This poem appeared on the blog in 2007 following my return to Gillingham (Kent) - where I was born lived until I was 14 years-old - for the first time in over 30 years.

I returned again yesterday. It was strange, visiting favourite childhood haunts, like stepping into a time warp. It was curiously moving and even more curiously exciting as I moved among the ghosts of my distant past. That first time, I’d met up with the mothers of two childhood friends, ladies in their 80’s and 90’s respectively now. I also visited Martin, school captain from my days at Gillingham Technical School in Green Street. I visited Martin again yesterday and have dedicated this poem to him in the collection. The old school building is still there, looks much the same as it did all those years ago and is now a College of Adult Education.

I am not a person who finds it easy to let go of the past and mine is full of (very) mixed blessings. Going back has made it so much easier to let go of the bad memories and continue to enjoy the good ones. There is, after all, an abiding kindness of most ghosts.

LEASEHOLD or REUNION WITH GHOSTS

Once, I returned to the place I was born;
its ghosts gathered to meet me
as I alighted (anxiously) from the train,
unsure how they might treat me

A kinder welcome than I had expected
restored a flagging self-esteem;
I could only wonder if they suspected
it was my intention to release them

As I wandered streets I’d loved so well,
ghosts leading me by the hand,
I relived every shape, sound and smell
of a child’s once magical land

For the old school, new tenants found,
cajoling me to name names
as we entered its sometime playground
to walk, talk, play games

To the house where life first took me
into its care for good or bad,
I fell a willing victim to memory,
innocence briefly recovered

From my ghostly companions, applause
welcoming me as one of their own,
till above the clamour I heard a voice
reminding me why I had come

In spite of my ghosts gravely chiding me
(for fear of reality’s blast?)
I put aside daydreams for a living history
that must (surely?) put them to rest

It took the mothers of childhood friends
to put our history in its place,
turn the pages of a story that never ends
but moves on, ever gathering pace

Reminiscing with my old school captain,
I heard twilight’s sweeter lay
as its ghosts began to grasp a situation
that would (at last) let them slip away

The fast train home told yet another story,
about feelings of love and peace
rediscovered and leasing a new maturity
from a child’s vision of happiness

[From: On The Battlefields Of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010.]