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Millbrook

On the train from Southampton we rose from the dead
with the cars all in black and the buildings all red;
no Calcutta rickshaws, no Calcutta smell,
just old English junk-yards and adverts for Shell.

We halted at Millbrook, and there was a tree,
a green, weeping willow for Peter and me;
we watched as it blew in the pale English sun
and we knew from that moment the dying was done.

For surely Rangoon and Bombay were not real?
The charwallah cries and the Chowringhee meal,
the hangings in Bhopal, and in the bazaar
the loudspeaker music and GI cigar.

The white Capetown Castle, the orderly queue,
the bells and the whistles, the shouts of the crew,
the jokes of us servicemen, bawdy retorts,
the kitbags, the bush hats, the bleached khaki shorts.

'My name's Peter Watkin - there isn't an "s" ‘
said the chap with the violin case in the Mess;
and we slept on the deck as we sailed the Red Sea
and we talked about Beethoven, England, and Tea.

The pine trees in Simla, the shimmering snows,
the woodsmoke, the children, and God only knows.
The willow tree welcomed us back from the dead
as we pulled out of Millbrook, and not a word said.

©1984 Paul Wigmore

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