1.
Random Thoughts as Night Falls.
Soon we will be putting the clocks back for winter.
Soon night will dominate the day.
It is now nearly a month since the equinox
And now I am kicking through the first fallen leaves
In my North London neighbourhood.
Last nights rain has left puddles on the new tarmac.
My shoes are letting water for the first time this year.
Although it is midday the streets are almost empty
Except for passing cars,
Their radios turned down low, which at weekends is unusual.
Perhaps the war in Israel is a talking point for all,
This being a multi-cultural community.-
The book in my pocket, The Poems of George Herbert,
Something to read now the nights are long.
In love with pastel shades these pale autumnal evenings,
And the moist chill of early starlit dawns,
I have mixed and matched odd clothes to keep the cold at bay,
But also to add some colour to my out of doors appearance;
Winter coats so drab they could be medieval.
I do not want to think about the war,
I know too well what both sides are about.
Baptized at birth, yet sometimes I was taken
To Bevis Marks Synagogue in Central London.
There the beauty of Sephardic chants and music
Lifted my thoughts to Spain and ancient Tunis
Where Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars worked
Harmoniously to shape our civilization.
Trying to settle my thoughts I pull the book from my pocket,
George Herbert wrote of love as he lay sick and dying,;
The first golden daffodils breaking through the snow.
2.
Childhood in Golders Green.
Trying to settle my thoughts I kick through fallen leaves,
Like the child I once was, and sometimes wish to be;
A feral innocence then my only virtue.
Basing Hill Park my paradise, my kingdom of content.
Where I rode my trike for what seemed hours and hours.
My Nana kept the shop by the tennis courts,
A wooden shack too often broken into.
She served hot stews, cakes and Camp Coffee.
But in my mind it is always autumn in the park.
Winter and summer the seasons lived indoors.
Sometimes in the park I watched young mothers strolling,
Their long coats neat and black.
Their children pushed in prams, so prim and proper,
That even royalty would be amazed.
These mothers spoke so quietly I could not understand them.
And no one told me what the blue scars meant.
The dark blue numbers tattooed on the arms
Of these quiet and caring mothers.
They pushed their prams proudly around the park
While I looked on and wondered.
Then, one Easter, I went by car to Auschwitz,
The weather was bitter, the ice had not quite melted.
A few small flowers braved the April weather
Pitiful as children wearing rags to school.
I was so alone there, numbed, scared into silence,
And yet at one with every single victim,
Whatever their race, their culture or religion.
The Outsider I now am was born that day in Auschwitz.
Goaded on by friends I sang an Easter Hymn,
But words alone could not redeem that place.
Someone nearby quietly recited Kaddish,
The Cantors voice wavering on the wind.
Soon we will be putting the clocks back for winter.
Soon night will dominate the day.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter,
14th. - 15th. - 23rd. - 26th. - 27th. October 2023.
I did not know that I was writing two related poems at first
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