Hiraeth

Paths had been cemented

The sweet petrichor was no longer there.

It no longer snowed in the winter

The pavements were left bare.

The vintage café where we had créme caramel,

Had been replaced by a departmental store.

Neither remained the eloquent old lady

Who sang of fantasies galore,

Nor the ice-cream man who smuggled to us extra proportions

When we asked for more.

The heart clung to fond memories

Their cadence lost in reminiscing,

Their essence remaining in dreams.

The elders spoke of the good old days,

In lines filled with wistfulness

Never realising,

They were creating our good old days,

By reciting to us ballads

Of bizarre and baroque nature.

The ineffable warmth of listening to them,

By the fireplace, sipping iced tea.

With pure wonder I ponder over,

-and the thought always baffles me-

How the sluggish lanes

Turned into bustling streets

And how even in a crowd,

A profound hiraeth consumes me.