Spring Song
I remember spring and everything a freshly washed clean
smell of green. A newborn kind of rain left the parked cars
shining like a passed shower. I remember cycling,
the tarmac deep black and streaming, past the shoppers
queueing the high streets, my jacket as full as a fool’s smile
and flapping out behind me was your name,
your name, unfaded blue washed sky, and I
can feel my legs surf down the pedals, smooth momentum,
bud-bursting force, like I push a great ‘O you’ around and around…
I can see my tyres cut a wake through a clean puddle,
shatter its mirror to sequins of you, and you, and you; glistening
in repetition. It felt like I was bringing springtime with me,
touching life into life like a fat white cloud and skimming
through the high streets, shoppers, parked cars and all and I
was singing,
singing,
singing.
Ben Hartridge is a social worker who lives, works and writes in London. He grew up in Devon and misses it.