The Length of Insight

Eclipse (1965)

Paul Thomas

But I knew when I was young
That green hills don't grow.
My friends and I, with our bright rubber balls,
Burst to the litany of cocks on the wind,
Till, brilliant as the sun, we hillocked home at dusk.

The fingers of sand were fine words
To the robins in our feet, and we danced,
Beating, blazing, in the flames that we caught
And rolled into mud statues with hysterical bellies.
From the trees, we threw stones.

I was home in the mouth of my mother's back door
When the dinner-bell dried out
The sweat in my shirt.
Later I would sit by the chair with a book
And learn
That green hills don't grow.

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