Out the door, right,
Cross the road, straight –
Take a left: ‘Blind Lane’
winds up to Babcary
towards the bridge where
we used to watch the trains
go by.
We ran down footpaths
past the ‘stick tree’
where dad would fashion
the instruments of our childhood
fantasies, the innocent hostility
of our transposing unknowing
hero and villain antipathies I
breathes frozen irony onto memory
our wooden spears and swords
transformed by make believe.
We swirl in dreams
dance our stories under
arcing clouds of leaves
veer right at the crop
crossroads corn growing
smaller with each narrative’s close.
At the end
of the field edge
we clamber through
that hole in the hedge
hollows bored between
boles, stems bend
around our haven
we call ‘the den’
and when
we emerge, bruised, and scratched
and climb up the scrap
of splintering pallet
to breach the walls
and look over
The familiar tracks
lay side by side slats
back-to-back percussive
resonant clickety clacks
Tap a beat that
I still walk to
I remember when we used to
stand, stretch our fingertips
and wave as trains passed
underneath the railway bridge
and fade away