The Walk

		
High and low we looked that afternoon\

in The Roughs, invited ancient trees\

to yield a word no-one had spoken,\

stooped to peer down holes, under hedges\

searching for stories yet to be told,\

stopped to catch on the wind a pheasant’s call,\

a quivering of wings, the musk of damp earth\

unfolding spring’s first celandine.
Startled by steam and the thrust of an engine\

crossing the valley, crossing the decades,\

we gasped, cried out and wished it slow so\

we could hold it there, halt time somehow,\

pull back the years to see who trod these paths,\

who tilled this soil — the chalk and trace of flint —\

who rested here on banks of bee orchids and vetch\

gazing half-eyed on green scarp slopes.
Back and forth we looked that afternoon\

in The Roughs, invited those who’d passed\

this way before to join us in our search,\

pledged to bequeath our words to those who follow on.
From Surrey Unearthed – Mole Valley Poets Anthology 2018