Fingerpost

i.m. Paul Harrison

That fingerpost, illegible. A narrow road
that slips away downhill into the sun,
the faintest implication of a road,
deep in cow-parsley, downhill
past shadow-crowded coppices
and yawning gates adorned
with faded admonitions, a road that runs
under the railway and under the river
and finally into the west.
                                              Remember that?
We shan’t be going now. We’ll never find
another time to save it for.
But the road still runs, as well you knew,
down between great copper beeches
and the steep fields after harvest, baked
to the ochre of shortbread,
not forgetting birdsong,
the descant of the rising lark
that never ends, composed of silence.

Sean O’Brien’s most recent collection of poems is Embark, 2022

The post Fingerpost appeared first on TLS.