If Only I Could.

Pedr, you swine! You made me go back to the smell of new mown grass. The sound of tree branches and leaves in the wind as you sit in the tree tops. The smell of oil and unleaded petrol in a service station. Melting tar on a hot summers day. The shimmer of the sea as seen from the hill top on my way to the beach on a hot summers day, we sometimes get two hot sunny days! The sound of a quiet conversation in the doctors waiting room. And my favourite; bacon frying on the griddle while the scent of toothpaste still hangs in the air.
How I long for those innocent days of the nineteen fifties and sixties when you had to wait two weeks for your pictures from your brownie camera to be developed...well maybe not for that, or grainy black and white TV that finished at 9.30! Having to get up at 8 o'clock on a freezing cold morning to walk the long mile to school. Apart from that you poem is really good.     

Thank you, Brian, Piri and Jim I love your feedback on my nostalgic words.

When I look around there is a world today that is full of sad vain shallow people grasping at the wind trying to show their real value. In my opinion. In the fifties and sixties in the free world most of us who were around then can reflect on a simpler but more satisfying way of life. This is what I was trying to capture in the poem. As expectations rise the happiness level drops the more you get the less you have got mentality. I won't take away from some people that they are experiencing tough times today but when I look at the people older than me who went through the worldwide depression and war they never gave up. My generation was the benefactor of that determination as our elders had to carry on and not give up.  I guess its human nature to have a sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past: Even as time progresses that will stay the same I guess and we all remember the good bits even though in that time the world wasn’t perfect and not everyone had a good time.

Cheers Jan thank you for taking the time to read my poem and make a comment. My sister over in Canada has her eightieth birthday this Sunday. She sent me a photo over email just before showing a picture with some purple lavender roses given to her by her neighbour for her birthday this weekend. It got me thinking back in the old days to see that someone would have had to paint a picture of her and the roses taking ages then ship it to me. Now we can take a picture and send it around the world in an instant. I read a lot of history books and the picture sent my mind of on a tangent just now thinking about the colour purple today. Purple was the colour of royalty to the ancient Romans it came from a lengthy process involving snails making it expensive. The source of the dye was the mucus produced by predatory sea snails found in the Mediterranean Sea. Purple dye cost about half a Roman soldier’s annual salary, or some say the equivalent of the cost of a diamond engagement ring today.

Purple the colour of ancient Roman royalty.

Purple from an empire that’s gone.

Purple roses and my sister in a picture sent across the world.

Purple I can see in an instant

Purple Rain, Prince

Purple Haze, Jimmy Hendrix

Purple the word in a email on paper or heard in a song.

Purple from back in time and far away in a picture.

Purple roses with a scent that can’t be sent.

Peatle

Let's not forget the band DEEP PURPLE -   
great song - " Hush "

Just think if history had somehow twisted language
and instead of people having " the blues" or Musicians
playing " the blues"   - instead they had "the purples or played "the purples"  ! 

Nobody will remember a specific flower in a garden filled with thousands of the same yellow flower,
But they will remember the one that managed to change its color to purple."

"Yesterday and tomorrow cross and mix on the skyline.
The two are lost in a purple haze. One forgets, one waits."

Purple is the last of the rainbow colors