One day when I was six or seven

And doubted there might be a heaven

A place with angels and a bearded God

Who ruled the Earth with his lightning rod

Well, on that day, I had to pee

And Mrs Drummond let me be

So out I went into the yard

Where urinals waited, yellow tarred

By years of bursting childhood wee

From nose-held careless infancy 

I did my bit to add more stain

With my little spray of acid rain

Then, just as I had started back,

I stopped mid-step on my usual tack,

A rush of colour caught my gaze

The playground tree was a purple haze

It enticed me up its bursting tower

Of dripping pendules of lilac flower

I found myself a place to perch

High inside its pagan church

And fell into a reverie,

A drug-enhanced cacophony

Of flies and beetles, stripy bees

Murmuring on the violet seas

And there I dozed until the bell

Which let my schoolmates out as well

Some climbed too so they could be

Co-celebrants in the sorcery

By telepathy we shared a prayer

To an Ancient One we sensed was there

That childhood spell still wraps my skin

And stops life trying to shut me in

From the lilac tree I still derive

My sense of truly being alive