The Pivot

The Pivot

If absence makes the heart grow fonder,

I cannot help but mull and ponder,

That if I hadn’t moved away

I’m sure I’d never want to stay

In the place I always need to be,

The pool of life beside the sea.

*

So surely it’s a waste of time,

Purely just a pantomime

In which I’ll play the merry dame

And dance on strings in my own little game,

Convinced the grass is always greener,

Failing to see that I’m a winner.

*

So does absence make the heart grow fonder?

A clichéd myth I shouldn’t wonder.

Yet had I not left my busy port

And ventured south, umbilical taut,

I’d never know what it means to me

To miss the city by the sea.

*

Yes, absence makes the heart grow fonder,

But will I ever really abscond there?

Who can tell? But I’ll tell you something…

If I have to spend another minute wondering

If I’ll ever make it back up there,

I’m not so sure that I’d really care.

*

I would really .. but you know that!

You see, care rhymes with there and port rhymes with taut.

I need fresh thoughts, a new way of thinking.

I need to ditch the rhyming verse and its lazy way of linking

This line to that - I really have to break the cycle

Of writing in a certain way and always feeling wistful,

About the things I cannot change

And focus on those I can rearrange,

Like the rest of my life and the colour of my rabbit,

There I go again with my predictable rhyming habit!

I don’t seem able to end this terse little verse

As the need for rhythm and structured prose has really become a curse.

Perhaps this line will be the last and I will rise above it,

To lay to rest the unchangeable - will this rhyme be the pivot?

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