Maisie's Song

Your name never suited you;
Maybe it’s odd to notice that
The first time around,
But I did all the same,
And it’s still true now.
The universe was in your smile
And another world in your eyes:
You never saw things the way we did
And you always spoke of somewhere else.
As children scuffing our toes
In the sand beneath the swings,
You spoke of far-off lands
And pretty things out of your head
And we laughed and rolled our eyes
And said: it’s just Maisie.
All along, just Maisie.
 
You and me, we were something else
But you still had colours in your eyes
And I had real life to handle.
In the end, you disappeared –
Melted away like the sun
On a grey afternoon, and gone,
And I was left in the monochrome dark
Wondering where it came from.
 
Did you find the colours in your eyes
Existed in the world out there?
Did you find your silver screen,
Your golden tongue, your copper hair
And the rainbows in the sky?
Did you find your reflection in the seas
Of the great Pacific, way out there,
Blue instead of Atlantic grey,
And did you smile to the world
And found it smiled back at you?
Or was the world a little colder,
A little greyer,
Than you dared to imagine?
Were the colours in your eyes just that
And your dreams from the swingset
Only dreams after all.
 
I still think of you, now and then,
Wherever it is you ended up,
And I wonder if you found yourself
In the wide world
Where you couldn’t back here
In the grey and green of English hills.
I wonder if you still smile,
If you still dream,
And sometimes if you remember me,
And then I move on
And forget again, for a little while.
You were only Maisie, after all,
And I have real life to handle.