The Radfords

Deep Wildwood where, Fom dawn to dusk

high summer days, you cast yourself

outlaw, mantelled like dark wolfsbane.

Mill race half-mud, knew where it could

be breached, if careful where you trod.

Though you spent hours in there with mates,

off on your own you liked it best,

alert to slightest stir or trace,

to drown within its rich dank taste.

One end the silent grinding-mill,

the other way to overflow,

a ten foot waterfall and poolwhere wagtails,

dippers bowed in awe to shimmering sapphire dinosaurs

Can’t reinstate those woods you knew.

Storm of the century, Scotch Brook

tore free, its destiny resolved

inside a cloud. Falls dry as hay,

the magic’s mocked, the music spent.

Mill pond’s entirely gone astray:

where rushes whispered, willows yell

as tall as six cloned houses grow,

where apples, pears and damsons scrumped

were hard as Spelling, sour as hell.

No silence now or what there is

palls like closed Sundays used to do.

Can’t wait to leave, incite the maul

of traffic: wasn’t ever so.

 by Peter Branson