Packwood House

I always assumed my childhood
had been packed away in a box
strapped up with tape
and hoisted into a loft.
When my parents moved house
I expected a call.
But it had leaked away long ago
into jumble sales and charity shops.
Some of it was dust between the roof joists.
A roll of cine film survived: two boys
running in and out of the Yew Garden
at Packwood House, faces
thrust, full-cheeked at the camera,
bodies, bleached of colour,
jerking like marionettes
to the sound of a film strip
flapping in a projector.
The Cold War had barely begun.
John F.Kennedy had not yet died for us.

				Clapham, 1994


	John Rule, 2004
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