The
Road to Laxton
The land is flat on the wide
margins of the river,
Prone to mist on slow,
soft, sodden Autumn days
Before the lazy sun
burns off the vapours
And spreads long shadows
in unbroken ranks.
The dampness oozes into
already-brimming ditches,
And amongst the rows of
shining furrows, fresh-sliced in the clay,
Standing pools of night
rain mirror ever-changing skies.
Groups of trees and
solitary oaks and sycamores break up broad vistas
Where smug, sure-footed
villages are firmly rooted amongst virile fields.
The road winds through
this landscape in historical meanderings:
A tale of times when boundaries
wrought by plough and privilege prevailed,
Making men and beasts move
in ways unlike the crow.
Rooks, too, live here in
rasping, raucous harmony
And sometimes starlings
murmurate:
A thousand bodies with a
single mind,
Ever reforming startling
telepathic patterns in the sky.
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