It winds its drunken way <br />as all lanes since Chesterton, <br />Hedgerows, verges, centuries old <br />green shoots in the fields <br />pheasants in the copse, waiting for the guns, <br />distant hills to north and south <br />too short as mountains, but <br />high enough on Sunday afternoon. <br /> <br />Roman fort and Saxon tumuli <br />I am not the first to stumble here <br />battles have been fought <br />two thousand years and more, <br />Hotspur died in Shrewsbury <br />Charles 1st camped down the road. <br />All today is calm. <br /> <br />Mackerel sky and sparrow hawk <br />black asphalt glistens in the rain <br />puddles in the road for childish games, <br />rotting hay waiting for the plough. <br />Half dark..... birds loath to fly <br />stake their claim before the moon's <br />cold stare silhouettes the oak. <br /> <br />The old beet factory gone, <br />two years passed, the site now <br />fenced in wire to stop the caravans. <br />I shall miss its steam and smoke, <br />Irish accents, mud and smells of boiling beet, <br />heavy lorries in the campaign season <br />tractors and their trailers. <br /> <br />Fields next year, rape-yellow <br />some, the blue of linseed <br />prettier than the beet, <br />how I miss the steam and chimney <br />in frost and cloudless sun, with <br />a dog a stick and whistle.<br /><br />John Rickell<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-lane-3/
