Memories are all we have:

Feeling happy, feeling sad,

Thinking of the distance

That separates us over time

Unless, of course, you rhyme.

Getting stuck in the eternal present

Man!  that just aint pleasant. .

One high English summer day in 1984

We took our daughter, Kate,

To the Dorset coast.

The Jurassic coast

She was eighteen months young

My wife was pregnant with our second child

On this day in late summer 1984

We parked in Westminster road

Near Milford-on-sea and I carried

Kate in her carry cot down to the beach,

More or less near the sea,

Built sand castles, ate cheese sandwiches,

Drank tea from a flask, played, her and me,

And, at last, packed up,

Went home to London.

That day-by-the-sea recurs to me

In memory very often.

I will think about that

At my last.