The Path Home
by Claire Booker

Autumn has a way with light, prolonging space,
making horizons sail achingly close.

A landslip of sights greets me from the top of Folly Hill:
Georgian brickwork, the castle keep, clouds

pinned by steeples–the gas works, an ugly thumb print.
Behind me, bracken sprawls its cinnabar pelt,

still warm with the possibility of adders.
It’s a long walk along flint walls to the swallow holes

where we banjaxed our sled one winter-stiff Christmas,
planted a tree from a pip, glimpsed the mythic stoat.

When the school bell tolls, it’s calling other lives.
The weathervane’s still undecided: North, East, South

and West, who is the boy that I love best?
Somewhere, I’ll find an oak that keeps the hoop

of my arms in its memory–a girl on the brink,
practising al fresco kissing on one such flimsy day.



 

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