Remember the first time
when Charles and Di were wed
a sunny day we walked
that first time on this path.
No pomp or TV ritual
we climbed above Lyme Park
the Gritstone Trail and on
to Charles Head lunch
devouring the valley view
across to Windgather’s rock.
Remember the first time?
Hardly a rock climb
but a twenty-foot heave
of rambler and rucksack
to the gritstone edge.
I remember the last time
when I went alone,
didn’t feel like climbing,
cheated on another route
like an aching, aging wimp.
In my head, I know
I’ll climb the rocks again.
I’ll climb the rocks again
and remember the first time.
Great images! There’s something about the syntax in St1 that makes me stumble on each reading. In fact… do you think the poem would lose anything if it began with St2? And again, would it be more natural to say ‘we climbed the Gritstone Trail above Lyme Park’?
The repetitions of ‘that first time’ work really well, as does the line repetition in the final stanza.
I like the way you snook in “I remember the last time” just when everything was cozy – like Robbie something makes me stumble – think it is “a sunny day we walked” but I do like the reference to Charles and Di as it anchors things for me and makes me think where I was and what I was doing on that day (I was working in a hot sticky factory and we weren’t allowed to watch the telly – so all this fresh air feels very powerful to me)