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Shady Nook [Latest Version]It's no quiet spot
now to dream in,
though once it was -
a small and golden hillock.
There was the sospiration of leaves
the birds among them singing.
From here the view widened
across the small and silent heath
crackling in the sun
to spires far away
whose bells could be heard
on a clear day
(the wind in the right direction.)
Then the railway thrust through
hard by, straight as a gun barrel,
engines thunder to and fro
north, south, east, west
to the exponential cities
insidiously polluting silence:
Edinburgh, Rugby, Leicester, London.
An island of quiet?
The call of a different faith
is drowned with the bells,
by counterstreams of traffic
flowing past, around:
to the airport where planes
for Europe, America, Asia
shuttle commerce, leisure
round this disc of green.
Who named this green centre,
bound by tar Macadam,
of an industrial whirlpool -
the incessant movement
of machines approaching, slowing,
accelerating off the curve
each in their chosen direction:
north, south, east, west
How can I possibly
sit here now
to think, to dream
to contemplate the view
on the leaded grass
my back to the last stand
of impotent spiked and huddled bushes?
What tranquillity is there
now - to write
at Poet's Corner?
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