loosestrife

 

loosestrife

Tangled barbwire thistles, broken bricks
Glass green emerald shards
Hillocks and mounds
A bombscape field of adventure
Black broken down bicycle
Chariot of fire, armored car
Hurtling through the air
Mud, blue sky, sweat and adventure
At 12 it seemed like paradise
As I patrolled my city block
Bombed flat ten years before

Strange how a war torn field
In a city of destruction
Became my escape to nature
But the thistles, the nettles,
Purple loosestrife in profusion
Were my glory
My whirlwind adventure
And my black rusty steed
It was my freedom from repression
And sometimes, rarely
I went with Margaret there

She was my soulmate
In the forests of a chapel
We built a wooden house there
Like Robin Crusoe in a city block
But this place was behind tall walls
Of decaying brick, crumbling
And within behind the white and black
Chapel
A forest, wild in the city confusion
Dense thickets of young sycamores
That we cut and hewed
And created our seclusion there
A secret place in a secret world
Of youthful joys, native creation