Snake-buckle belt

When I smell the crushed grass, green on my skin,

I am lost in the long-forgotten scent

Of childhood summers, and remember then,

Another self. I wonder where he went,

Boy in baggy khaki hand-me-down shorts,

The snake-buckle belt, grey socks at half-mast,

The wanderer of the woods, whose thoughts

Reassemble now; perfume of the past

Has taken me; her warm arms hold me firm,

I can see my knees, grubby, scuffed and stained,

With all the future years still to come,

In Augusts when it seemed it never rained.

Kidnapped by the past, back to how it felt,

Grey socks at half mast, the snake-buckle belt.