A poem by someone I admire greatly.

Shared with me by my friend and patient, British author and poet Myra Schneider, whose work and approach to life - and living life to the full - I am in awe of. 

- Adam

THE JOURNEY 10.7.26

A hard coming we had of it. When we set off rain was sheeting

and a gale force wind blew against us as if in spite

as we struggled up the drive and across the soggy verge

to the cab. We scrambled inside annoyed we were already wet

and the vehicle burst into life at once, charged like an unleashed bull

to the end of the road where it snorted with rage at the long queue.

Rain waterfalled down the windows for mile after mile

as we stop-started across the outer suburbs. At East Finchley

we queued so long to snail-pace past the sets of traffic lights

the driver pulled his lunch box out of a bag and munched his way

through a mixed salad which I wished I was eating. As we crawled

past mansions in the once-magnificent Bishop’s Avenue I knew

we were already late but I ordered myself to forget about

the time. Impatient drivers hooted as we inched towards the pond

at the top of the hill above Hampstead and as I stared at sheets

of water being tossed by the wind, which was now demented, it felt

as if we were braving the wilds of moors in Scotland. I thought

of the life I led decades ago in my early twenties while we slowly

descended the village street, passed the famous cinema,

cafes and boutiques. Later, halted by a sign to Belsize Avenue,

I could see my young naïve self cooking in my first bedsitter,

a mean attic at the top of a mansion in which Mary, the housekeeper

and her kids lived in the basement among lines of damp washing

while the avaricious owner queened it over carpets white as polar bears

in spacious rooms on the ground floor. The weather was still vicious

as we entered Regent’s Park but there I was running through it

seventy decades ago to get to Bedford College for a lecture.

At last we were weaving through Marylebone’s maze of streets

to our destination. Here, we were stung by hail before stepping

into a sunny place with plants in pots and leafy tendrils unwinding.

As I gazed at a dish of tempting apples Adam appeared. Smiling,

he forgave our lateness and I knew we had reached Eden at last.

Myra Schneider

The first sentence is the first line in Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot