Paths walked for long years,
Long legs, shoe-shod
Or cloven, a short hop
From field to fair
Along these ridges
Fringed with trees;
Viewing points guarded
Only by skylarks
And hovering jackdaws
Whooping on thermals
Years on, these same paths
Cut across the high hills still;
Close-cropped chalk lands
Skylarks still chattering
Their nattering call;
Sentinels too
The mossy finger posts
And picnickers parking bays
Offering tarmacked vistas
Onto overgrown drove roads –
Roads no more:
Bamboozled by brambles’
Blood-bringing barbs,
Nipped by nettles’
Venomous vitriol,
Even the boxy pupils
Of the Wiltshire Horns
Study no longer
These routes of traverse
That wane like whispers –
Memory lines lost –
To plants, to ploughs
To the past.
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