Autumn 1975 Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

I have parked the car near the gate
And a short expanse of pasture
Has to be crossed before we enter
The woodland - the ‘wood' of my boyhood.

We are up from London for the weekend
And I show you the farm from the vantage
Of the muddy roadside - there across
The valley on the bank above the willows.

But we turn from the view of the farm
And tramp across the muddy fields
To the spinney where I follow the brook
To the point where I had cut off a meander.

The stream had ground out a deep curve
And as a boy of nice adjustments
I had trudged across from the farm
And short-cut the flow with a spade.

And then I said that I must make love to you:
Unbuckling your jeans, kissing you first
I am sure but acting with a remote urgency
That was hardly appropriate, sparingly kind.

But you indulged my insistent ceremony
And let me bring things together there
Breaking and recasting ancient spells
That brought the stream to grade.

And hugging lovingly later, we found the bridge
Where we could cast some sticks downstream
And see them race away with the current
Or eddied endlessly … or snagged to stillness.