It is the taste of salt

It is the taste of salt

On a breeze

Rich in the evocation

Of childhood

Living close to the sea

Fishing from a boat

In coastal waters

Swimming with friends

In the rain

Laughing at little things

Leaving it late

To go home

Being sent to bed

Without food

The sound of a cuckoo

Drifting on the air

As the sun sets

Morning coffee

Before sleep

Has fully fallen away

Remembering school days

Wearing hand me downs

And mismatched socks

Holidays in a caravan

With a leaking roof

Playing board games

And twenty-ones

With the grown-ups

Using a matchstick stake

Or burnished coppers

But no silver

As rain falls,

Chemical toilets

The reek of shared showers

The sting of a slipper

Wielded by a teacher

With a combover

And halitosis

The shock as a piece of chalk

Hits the mark

Knuckles rapped

With a bamboo cane

Childhood is a memory

Not to be lived again

But it is defining

To behold

What it means to become

Human

With all of the baggage

That mantel entails

Of all the wonders

It is smell

That provides a hair-trigger

An explosion

Of imagination

Picture perfect stories

Of another time

As easily as blinking

Without even thinking

We are there

In the bygones

When what was ahead

Was a glorious quest

For adventure

And the promise

Of memories

Much sweeter

Then, than now.