Requiem For Laurie Lee (1914 – 1997)


Every pain and passion you shared with us,
The warm scent of woman and the scream of war,
The touch of Rosie’s lips as fleeting as youth,
In prose fat with poetry.

We ran with you through Slad’s boy-loved fields,
Gulped the cider flagon’s giddying brew,
Suffered the barbarous first school day
And mourned with infant hearts the village deaths.

We followed you to parched and hungry Spain,
Felt your reeling thirst for life and water,
Heard the fiddle you stroked for coins
In the baked dust of the Plaza Mayor.

The writing done, you read your life aloud to us,
Recorded almost every honeyed page;
Your voice, ripe with living and Cotswold vowels,
Turned our speakers into shrines.

Laurie Lee, I lived half your life as well as mine.
You told it to me in a wealth of words
That hymned our English tongue
And reminded me to cherish.

© Pete J Garbett 2001