baptism | mlewisredford

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looking for my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915¹

these times of being cut loose are more usual than comfortable
the buzz of contact and identity more potential than actual

I go up to London to find bits of my true nature somewhere
deep inside the forty four miles of time that has elapsed,

past the same street boards advertising new plastic on trend,
in even more colourful lime but now un-im-bleach-able;

where grand gable and architrave stand cleanly revealed in all
of their time from behind trimmed hedge, but window bay and

fanned lintel remain obscured behind opportune ash (and
where crickets rasp in raised lawn to ear level off the hill); on

the hill² a crack in the front wall sinking century-ly downhill
under sounds of jet somewhere in the sky hidden by dampening

of leylandii; did I get baptised at All Saints Shooters Hill³,
or did my brother, when the church was still young, its

thousand panes held individual by lead, reflecting the
cubist street, I don’t remember now – fractured memory;

where sandstone is shaped short in modest Empire-control: in
niche and ledge and decorative finial, during all the wind of

cold streets, withstanding the new redbrick of decades; I
cannot draw the line of brick at the corner of Bloomfield

Road, true neither to hill nor sky nor shadowed underledge
to the proud cornice (boundaries to distant-impossible crane)

or even the sharp roofs clipped to lead-clad valley, let alone the
ample iron downpipe … but I have learnt to write the architecture

of odd alignment and cut-through alley; perched now against
Ashlar Place at just the right angle between sun-wipe and shadow

(shiny haloes in the indents on the page as I write Gurdwara
Sahib Ramgarhia Temple⁴ in biro), the architecture of

eternal Empire highlighted in gold with khandas blowing
in the wind … still cannot obscure the luxury apartments in

constant construct: -ING IS BELIEVING;⁵ buses come and
buses go all along Woolwich New Road before the clapping

troup of ‘Time for God’ angels and their families stood around,
full of God’s immanent voices, in and out of sight and chant,

(I have an old photo: a man crossing the road from Beresford
Square⁶ with box suitcase in grey [and suggested brown] after

apparent rain … when the retired newsagent passed by adding
that he had run that shop opposite for thirty years, how –

much – it – has – changed); perched, now, on the Metropolitan
Drinking Fountain & Cattle Trough, oiled and crust stone

from hide-breath and redundant exhaust; a mother and slinky
daughter watch the marching bands pass from their third floor

balcony, height of streetlight, defined before the upright
sea of tarp covering the next block of the Royal Arsenal

Riverside in construct (surprise!); ah, Lee Rigby,⁷ under height
of Elliston House, these cars pass far too quick to get

to their traffic, those beech trees opposite have grown to
lean downhill for fifty years and more; I looked at every

plaque, Mum, found plenty of Jeans and Margarets (and
even Gladyss) but no Redfords, I can’t think I would have

missed you sixteen years into other existences … I don’t
know: I smiled at some of the plaques as I looked for you,

I shall smile at everyone now that I haven’t found you

¹ this peice follows my last visit to London: walking downhill from Plumstead to Woolwich and around and back, driving to Eltham to where my mother (Jean Marguerite Redford 1933-1999, daughter of Gladys Charlotte Conlay 1906-1989) was cremated
² Eglinton Hill, early childhood home
³ All Saints Shooters Hill
⁴ Woolwich Gurdwara
⁵ woolwich new road and buildings
⁶ true nature II
⁷