Blue

Gold cherry
Poem of the week

By HarryC

Sat, 06 Jun 2026
  • 685 reads
18 comments
 

times we had,

the three of us -

fifty summers gone

 

a boy

his dogs

the day unspooling

across the hills

and no one

 

sweet hiatus

 

we three 

the sky

the sun

the birds

the grass -

endless

 

elsewhere,

tigers hunted

continents drifted

wheels turned

people loved

or died

 

my thoughts were all -

 

knowing nothing,

without knowing

 

those hours

ours

 

and life the

next thing

 

(my image)

Certificate U
Poem
The Rest of My Life
Nature

Comments

Submitted by GlosKat on

This is lovely Harry.  A brief interlude of happiness.  All the more precious because of not conciously recognizing it as happiness at the time (if I've got your drift).

 

Submitted by HarryC on

You have! Innocent times. I'd left school, hadn't started work yet. I naively thought that leaving school meant I knew all I ever needed to know about everything. Reality a few years later was a big shock. I haven't quite recovered!

Thanks for reading.

Submitted by rjnewlyn on

This is our Facebook/Meta and Twitter/X Pick of the Day! Please share/re-post if you like it.

 

Submitted by HarryC on

Wow! Surprise! Thank you very much, Rob laugh

Submitted by insertponceyfre... on

Wonderful Harry - looking back at a child's eye view of his world. Very well deserved golden cherries

 

Submitted by HarryC on

Thanks, Claudine. Well... I was 15. But yes, still a child. And very green behind the ears!

Submitted by Sooz006 on

Beautiful. And a lovely reminder of happy days with  loved-pets passed. (presumably).

 

Submitted by HarryC on

Hi Sooz. Thanks. Yes, long gone. This was 1975, when they were both about a year old (actually, one was ours and the other belonged to a local farmer).

Submitted by Frances Macaula... on

Beautiful words - lovely to read your poetry again, HarryC.

Congratulations on the Golden Cherries too - very well deserved!

Hope you're keeping well,

Frances. 

Soundcloud:  https://soundcloud.com/search?q=FrancesMF

Submitted by HarryC on

Thank you, Frances. I don't write poetry much now. Occasionally, a few random words come together in a thought.

Hope you're keeping well, too.

Submitted by airyfairy on

This is our brilliant Poem of the Week! Congratulations!

I hope you don't mind, Harry - I've used your title as the inspiration for this week's Inspiration Point. Such a simple title, but so evocative.

Submitted by HarryC on

Thanks very much, airyfairy.

I called it 'Blue' thinking about Housman's 'Blue-Remembered Hills'... 'The happy highways where I went and cannot come again.' And it made me feel a bit blue thinking about it.

Submitted by lenchenelf on

call this evocative poem sweet, for it blooms a precious moment in memory before adult platitudes marr just being. 

best to you 

Lena x

 

Submitted by HarryC on

You're right, Lena. At that time, the world was just opening up for me. I was in for a big shock when it did.

Submitted by celticman on

a lovely way to go, wherever you went. 

 

Submitted by HarryC on

We lived up on the fringes of Dartmoor, Jack. It's just before I started work on the cider farm - my first job. It was a real indulgence for me because my big obsession was Sherlock Holmes - and now I was right where 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' was set. It fired my imagination, that landscape. 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

This is wonderful, Harry. You captured that fleeting state of mind, freedom combined with optimism and an increasing independance, along with the boundless physical energy and curiosity of childhood. The rest of the world can feel fictional and doesn't exist to a dog. I could almost convince myself that the rest of the world is made up.

 

Submitted by HarryC on

Thank you, Jane. That's it exactly: freedom, optimism and a sense of independence. I was just glad to be away from school, to be honest. Looking back, I think I can say those few short months were some of the happiest times I remember. And I feel the same way, too - like the rest of the world is a figment of my imagination. I can't see a lot that makes sense in it.