Return Poem by John a'Beckett

Went back to where we walked that summer
down an elbow of The Small Carpathian belt
Dandelion in free motion, Blava’s liquid air!

And in a spirit perhaps a little cavalier, felt
if we had another crack at the rub in question
what you called getting on and living. Knelt

down to pluck a rhododendron you plucked there;
conjured you up out of our strands of separation
aided by a stab of mine at pagan prayer.

Reached the black stream, you remember, where
you gave a glance in my direction; in it I detected
a slight season change in you, the bright suggestion

of impatience there but in its misty grist a clue
that “if you returned”, more than that last summer
we were here, the sky would ring its richest blue.