FebulousFebruary 2025: Lost and Found

For Pavlik

If we had discovered this path down to the sea another time:

If we had run laughing, jumping over these white chalk boulders

Sculpted by the waves:

If we had found this sheltered cove and paused

To catch our breath:

Would we have looked towards that shimmering horizon,

Then at each other and, careless of discovery or consequences,

Kissed?

Perhaps?

And would we have contrived, through the days that followed,

To steal moments in hidden corners until,

Inevitably,

We were found out?

Or is it better now,

After forty years,

On this jewel-like day, to walk slowly down the steps

And sit,

Watching the birds swooping low along the shoreline:

To sit,

Hearing nothing but the lapping of the water,

Grateful for the unexpected warmth of a day in March:

Eventually, turning and climbing back to the top:

Two men in middle-age, a friendship rekindled,

Silent and content?

31 March 2003

Andrew Derbyshire, 66, Southend-on-Sea,