POTATO PICKING IN THE 60s

POTATO PICKING IN THE SIXTIES
 

It was one summer, must have been '65.

What had been hidden for so long came alive.

Like stepping out of a cocoon, free at last.

I am seen as attractive, not as an outcast.

There were five of us, three girls, two boys.

I was brotherless, he'd been left with his toys.

Tattie picking, an annual tradition.

The day would develop its own volition.

The money wasn't much, a few quid, piece rate.

The farmer was heartless and a cheapskate.

Weather forecasts didn't exist, not for me.

What I found when I woke was all I could see.

The day began clear, warm, cloudless and sunny.

Coaxed into t shirt and shorts - easy money?

Nah hard work for an hour then the deluge arrived.

Hands, knees muddied we carried on, we survived.

Trying to talk through uncontrollable teeth

Feelings were surfacing from deep underneath.

The girl who had ended up next to me said.

"I'm tired, cold, I need somewhere to rest my head."

I offered my chest, she cuddled into me.

Cold and wet but so very, very happy.

As for tomorrow what was I really expecting?

Two life paths that just for a moment found themselves intersecting.

A head on my chest, my arms ignoring the dampness of her clothes.

Maybe an hour given to us, a gift from which memory flows.

Tomorrow, ah tomorrow I dare not give space to my thoughts.

They're like a flower that briefly sings then withers and rots.

They are the extent of what will be allowed me, that much is true

and the souls we left in the field that day, away with the birds they flew.

Just another episode to go in the picaresque novel of my life 

At 14 it joins the already long list of what ifs with which it is rife.

Oh but the memory of that time will never leave me 

I know not your name but an angel you will always be.