After Before Poem by Robert Creffield

I never understood much that went before, could never sing hymns at the gate of youth with confidence nor carry myself through uncertain adolescence with conviction; I was always puzzled by geometry and the comatose of algebra drawing a sort of wonder only in the divine mystery of the solemn earth and the sound of ice cream vans down backstreets and the jazzy hum from playgrounds and swimming pools and the quiet cathedral peace of bluebell woods where curiosity blinked at every turn of the knotted path and ivy hung trunks stood defiant along the dipping brook with its mystery of where it had been and where it went - I never understood much about my coming of age where manhood was an advertising falsehood and adulthood was a wound of conformity with its dreaded spectre of responsibility; I always dreamt of someone nobler to be there when I awoke, a confidante to walk the timeless trails, a twinned mind to share the small miracles when light gets through the blinded eye - and then, how sweet, how sweet it was, you appeared from behind the curtain of fate, a gift from divine providence, an answer to a gambler's prayer, how sweet that miracle was, to find you amongst the chimneys and railings of the bleak landscape that went before, a steady hand against the wicked winds of chance, a fellow explorer, my blessed companion, precious as the boundless sky, you turned the heads of lambs as you passed by and the truth of you was the God in everything I adore.