Still Water
Prose Poems
Copyright @ 1989 by Arthur Garfunkel
ISBN 0-525-24795-5
Used by persmission of Author - All Rights Reserved
34
I walk to Foyle's, the bookshop. When I
get to Charing Cross Road, green leaves are
on the few remaining trees standing there
…at Denmark Street.
Twenty-one summers ago I came to
know this part of town. We sang Paul Simon
songs and passed the hat around at Leicester
Square. Kathy collected. She was seventeen.
We were twenty-two then, and for a lovely
little while.
We were new to the plural of holiday;
you went on them on the continent as a rule.
In those days you knew a thousand things to
do to be cool…It's not so much that leaves
turn brown, it's the trees themselves that are
taken down, leaving a void around Foyle's
for me to understand. Once, my heart was
filled with the love of a girl and the whole
lush grove of the world was expanding
Today, green leaves are on the few
remaining trees of Denmark Street still
standing.
LondonAugust 1984