*This December, I am reblogging some of the more popular poems and articles that I have posted in the course of the past year. Here is another one.*

Pastoral

The old lane

a small car can just squeeze down

between hawthorn hedges,

and stop occasionally,

as we leap out,

like bank robbers,

to pluck blackberries

from the hedgerows,

for crumble, jam and the deep-freezer,

for free

leads to the village churchyard

I wander round in a long dark coat

trying

to read the names off old graves.

*

Zigzags of ancient paths

cross fields of cows,

where we can picnic on apricots,

warily under their watching eyes.

*

Cattle are called

to water,

and shelter

as church-bells ring at dusk

and we skip off to the red-brick house

that once was home.

*

The shepherd is a ghost

singing to his lost flock

as night falls.

The chocolate factory chimney

belches out sweet-smelling smoke

over this parceled and divided land.