Eighteen, and not looking

Walking into gently hanging rain,
cocooned under trees,
the gathered water dripped a slow beat to the moss-sponged earth,
and the old-lifed leaves rested
mixing brown decay with murmured smells of garlic.

Under their tree tunnels
hedged lanes hid me
in green glowing sun,
and hills enfolded me in their lush embrace
like a mother, grown round on the fat grass,
whose close slopes encircled my sight
in her blood-earthed valleys.

And I was eighteen, and left without looking,
for flat lands,
wind harrowed,
full of sky and distant visions,
And I was eighteen,
and left without looking.

May 88