My View Poem by S.A. Blair

I remember I had a view. I called it ‘my view’.
I found it once I’d been given that new freedom of latter teenage years.
I turned a corner clipping the apex, clumsily I suppose,
But it felt perfect at the time.
And then, wow! It must have been the beginning of adulthood.
Frenetic processes the result of intense focus slowed and stopped as the pistons followed suit. Only a moment of hesitation, considering driving on, but no.
From standstill, I twisted from the waist to see the way back. Perfect, a lay-by
Feeling biting-point I manipulated the machine which moments ago had been one with me. Now just a tool.
The unsure whine of reverse caused the crickets to make haste, I’m sure.
I rocked into the space by the shugh. I hadn’t been mistaken. Wow!

I sat there spellbound. The smell of raspberry in the sparkling water fired my senses.
From then on, one has always spoken of the other.
It is hard to impress a seventeen year old who thinks he knows everything.
Where did this come from? This newness, this appreciation, was a touch-paper for adulthood.
Shouldn’t this all be famous? On a postcard at least.
How come no-one else noticed?
I’d take it then. It was my view.

Now I knew what they had meant: “the Mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea”.
A different aspect of course, but Nevermind.
Ha! It’s possible that was what was playing at the time – being seventeen.
But that bit wasn’t even the focal point.
This inviting mound, the young firm breast of my girlfriend, in a woolly jumper washed too much, creating tight flecks of baubling, rose to the bottom left of the frame.
Trees stood on the top, sparse enough that you could see the forest clearly.

I returned there time and again in my formative years, usually alone.
I’d wait with a specially chosen song and this Canadian raspberry water, sparkling at the ready. I would treat all my senses; this wasn’t solely for the eyes.
I remember getting irritable, strongly so, with those who’d interrupt this meditation of teenage decadence. Not that they ever stopped or anything, just drove past.
Maybe some would eye me suspiciously. How could a seventeen year old just enjoy the view? I wasn’t rebelling against them, just my own.
“Oh clear off” I’d say, but as a ventriloquist so they couldn’t read my lips.
It wasn’t worth the hassle – they might know my mum!
You see they didn’t understand the difficulties I had with the timing of my sensory masterpiece.
The view, the scent, the taste, the audio crescendo. They must be scored perfectly.
I was a film director losing patience with the day-to-day activities on my location set.
When it did work? My skin a dissertation in Braille.


I shared it only with a select few, maybe only two.
Once, years later, yet years ago, I took my wife to show her. Like the other initiated,
So lucky, but just didn’t get it.
After all, she’d just seen the Giant’s Causeway for the first time. Big deal.
Maybe we were in too much of a rush. The planes, trains, automobiles and endless cups of tea that are the essentials of going home. Damn - and I forgot to visit aunty Coral.
I often think of it actually. I wonder who has inherited it. Another boy-racer? or perhaps an auld country boy whose aging knees caused him to pause fortuitously?
Enlightened, he’ll smile incredulously. Realisation and surprise coursing through his nostrils sharply.
Yes my friend, it has always been there.
I’ll go soon to claim back what is rightfully mine.
My view.
Mine.


(c) S.A. Blair 2008