Cusp of Springtime

As I stood, night half fell in the car park, Stuck between twilight and sheer dark, Suicidal on the ledge of near dark, And I touched the fire-station wall. In the quiet empty void of a slow chill, Like the march of an ant up an ant hill, Hanging on yet unable to keep still, The shift of the seasons befall. The fingers of winter retracted, The bones and the talons contracted, Whilst the light hit the screens and refracted And then faded out and died. I observed as she tottered and stumbled, Heavy hearted she muttered and mumbled, And her soul seemed so weary it crumbled With the youthful remains of her pride. On an old splintered bench she sat drinking, Teenage thoughts in her head she was thinking, When the vodka took hold she was sinking To a dreary, anaesthetised place. I looked on as she bowed her head sadly, For some boy who had treated her badly, When she’d loved him so truly and madly, Her tears shone a silvery trace. I wanted to tell her forget it, If you don’t you will only regret it, But a voice in my head wouldn’t let it Philosophically roll off my tongue. For the young they will heal and endeavour To transcend asymmetrical weather, And their hearts remain light as a feather In the bright shining future to come. Yet I felt for her juvenile sorrow And my own multiplied for the morrow, Nothing left I could beg, steal or borrow To dispel what devoured of my mind. As the cusp of springtime receded, I sighed and then simply conceded, That all I still wanted and needed Was to turn back the hands of time