John Vetterlein

In Regent's Park

Spring Ast LIX. Rousay, 1999.

...once, on a wooden bench seat in Regent's Park,
the sun gone down leaving a May sky twilight lit, opalescent,
green and blue, I knew what it was to be in love, an experience
too intense to last, but then that was not the intent; what lasts
is that which escapes time's net and gives to life meaning.

From the title poem, a lament for the demise of romantic love: 'the profiteers have got to work and mangled it flat'.

I have very fond memories of the Park. I worked for a time at the London Planetarium during its foundation and would wander into the Park for my lunch break. But my association with the place goes back long before that time. It always appealed to me in a way it is difficult to define.

In a letter to me in December 2005 the author wrote this note.