OLD FATHER THAMES

You'd think I'd be able to explain it. I love words, poetry, music and expression but I can't use any of those things to describe how I feel.

Maybe a chord would do it - a flat second or a jazzy ninth or something. But no, it wouldn't tell the whole story.

And neither can I. My insides are like foam; frothy sea spray or the top of a cappuccino. I don't know what to think or how to feel about that.

I went to the river at Pangbourne tonight to see if that helped. The warm sun fell behind the trees and Whitchurch Bridge. Some teenagers dripped out of the river where they'd been hollering and splashing. I sat on a bench (where else) and gazed into the thick green water.

Rivers begin with the smallest of streams. Away to my left, somewhere in the Cotswolds, tiny tributaries poured into the water that would eventually be the Thames, flowing left to right past me, on to Reading, Sonning, Kingston and London before winding its way out into the great ocean. The famous River Thames, the old father himself. Everything gets bigger if you let it flow.

I stood on the bank. Where am I flowing? What am I doing? Will this river reach the sea?

I get like this, on the edge of things. I suspect that that's where I am, and that that is what the foam-feeling is about. Time floated by, dark and mysterious.

"Sometimes the simple words are the best," said an echo of a friend in my mind. I agree. I think it's time.

It is time.