Cycle with Celeste, Bouldon, Corvedale, Shropshire, 2ndAugust 2023
How can you compare and contrast
two things never seen only sensed:
An atmosphere or corner left behind
that backward shadow edging across the mind
mislaid to the eyes
unclear – yet pre-eminent.
From social city to rural lostness
where does isolation or assurance triumph?
The crossing-keeper’s house keeps its stare on the rails
its redbrick back to these woods which crown the edge
hill ridge, not limit, end or fracture . . .
No windows face this way – of attack it lies blind
a strict human focus to disdain all mystery.
Do not sing or show me the tears in your eyes
this deep country was ours until yesterday
landlocked far from every tide
barring those which fill and empty the head
with indecision.
Mansion or hovel and the circumstance of poverty,
struck dumb or smoothed away by croquet
forget the callous lopsided stamp of history
unto money and materiality
embodied, extrinsic, intrinsic, mort . . .
which finds expression – direct or by default
in a chain of moats and shattered sheds
red-flagged beans above nuclear sprouts
regimented vegetables perhaps, but embodying toil and care
to oppose the crosscut fade of pointless innovation.
Yet in the end, bland cars line the greens and smother the lanes
to kill the freedom they propose
numbing every minefield of marrow
and straggling air-burst of rose –
faint scents in the dormitory of a world long asleep
to fairness
or questing ambition.
What is forward, what reverse?
there is no answer but the one always sensed
silent, like the abandoned farm where the soldiers hide
escaping towards Dunkirk and find
a phantasmagoric rest, out of sight
under squadrons of nocturnal thrumming threat
an oppressive drone of black silhouettes overhead, but
a brief home (with lookout) nevertheless.
Inside, away from creaking cottage panes,
a comforting childhood throwback to friendly barns and proper eggs
crooked landings and calm wallpaper, billets in the eaves
an interlude which cannot last
sliding to deep deathless oversleep, that pillow-cloud of dreams
before panic breaks with the morning light,
a glimpse of movement seen too late,
seven stairs stricken,
doors burst open
protective walls out of reach . . .
murderous machine-gun behind the oast house
explodes a stream of bullets
fierce-chatter among the orchards, apple and cherry of my eye
and Eden is destroyed
unshared
all blossom denied.
* * * *
High summer in Shropshire and more than eighty years have passed,
have we become a different race?
Looking down from the wooded edge,
the villages of my heart were never tied to place
yet remain both vivid and detached,
fictional ideal, communities out of reach,
a hub of doorways and lives only sensed:
an atmosphere or crossroads moving on
left behind and found again,
a forward light drawing the mind
through woods, fields, another sequence of lanes
– towards the pub’s tranquil garden
or the maze’s quiet end.
Lawrence Freiesleben
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