Photo by Kristine Cinate on Unsplash

 

When we were allowed out to play,
our choice of wandering led us
to Bird’s Lane – Bird being
Bird the Cowman, who lived on the corner
of the lane to the church and the main road.
We held our noses and dodged
the pats on the pebbled pavement,
following black and white cows
ambling from sheds to pasture.

Wiping shoes on grassy banks, we rounded the corner
and raced past the Spinney, a ragged grove
of spindly trees. This was the source of monster
myth, strange shadows, further along the lane,
at the bottom of Rectory Hill, its sister Spinney
was our own Hundred Acre Wood.
I never expected to meet Pooh, but occasionally
Owl hooted somewhere nearby.

Having escaped whatever lurked in the Spinney,
we teased and tagged along the lane until we
stopped at Choirmaster Kirk’s grand brick house.
wrought iron gates, tall as the house, over-arched
by the same red bricks were a magnet for daring
to approach. Mr. Kirk was strict, brooked no mischief,
wished no youth unbidden on his land. We darted,
whisper-touched the iron railings, ran to shallow ditches
that edged the lane.

In those ditches grew lush weeds and sweet blossoms,
the memory of which began the exploration of this
poem. Naming those that I remember, Jack-in-the-Pulpit,
Jack-in-the-Box, Dead Nettle and Plum Pudding,
is pleasure on my tongue, sweet as the minute drops
of nectar that I and my playmates squeezed from the
blossoms that we picked.

Nevertheless, behind the laughter, darings, and teasing was the
darkness, that at any moment the siren could
sound, and then the ditches would become refuge
It leant extra richness to those hours, a gloss of pause
from the fear that accomanpied most of our
comings and goings in those days.