Red-Headed

Hot summer sun & long lazy days
Of picnic's past in the Wyre Forest.
Time drags when you're just a young boy
With relatives & cousins cramping your style.
I had this urge to run away & explore the world
Free of benches, litter bins & boundaries
Parents & forestry commissions.

Then I found it: A wire fence
Cunningly hidden in deciduous green;
A nursery for young trees.
A private playground all to myself
'Another Eden' full of promise,
If I could just squeeze in...
Quite easy for a small child.

A secret garden that only I knew
Just a stone's throw away from everyone!
Once I'd pushed past youthful trees
I found a clearing in my paradise.
A beautiful area of quiescence
That I visited on every trip
That we made on those tumultuous days.

My Eden had a diamond-backed adder
Who I nearly sat on one warm crazy day
As he curled near the base of a conifer.
That very viper must have been symbolic
For like someone previous, I lost my paradise
When the next year I found to my chagrin
I'd grown far too big to crawl back under that fence.