RIDING ON THE EDGE OF YOUR DAY | George Wallace RIDING ON THE EDGE OF YOUR DAY i see you on a footpath examining snailshells you are wearing an apron of white garlic how many bluebells are in your eyes? i see you cowslip in hand trucking through the mud a fifth form schoolgirl quick as a rabbit merciless in your laughter striped tie around your neck i see you traipsing the seaside promenade there's a jackdaw in your chimney great rookeries of hair a ream of paper awaits you you are memorizing chinese characters & spilling blue pots of ink i see you gathering periwinkles on a grassy hillside with yellow gorse riding endless waterfalls mayflies buzzing at your temples you are a certain kind of sunlight that only falls on the irish sea you are a certain kind of wrinkled rain in herringbone & new galoshes i see you purchasing eggs & jam while the rest of england sleeps i see you parrying shop girls many aunties at your wedding wearing ridiculous hats i see you on a church bench eating fish & chips standing by the moot house tying up mistletoe i see you contemplating a future in politics you remind me of royal carpet your laugh is a little majestic you keep rolling yourself up & spitting yourself out in the limnal sky in the no horizon in the coal yards & in councilhouses don't tell me there is no future don't tell me the buck stops here you are written in cartwheels you are wearing a garnet pinky ring plucked from a hawthorne hedge you are mad as a field of larks & in love with the spring i see you impassive as a field of wheat sharp as the crack of a cricket bat silouhetted in colliers' smoke at the top of the staircase just around the riverbend, i see you! elf's tongue green & sassy two hands planted in the soil two feet pointed at the sky George Wallace