SOUTH DOWNS

The afternoon sun

rides on my right shoulder

From my left foot

a long shadow springs

Low light gilds the ridges

of distant curving fields

Frost fingers thin shadows

from a stand of trees

Flints littering the track

scatter underfoot,

scoured by the light,

hard edged and ancient

Bones beneath the tumulus

push up

harebells, thrift, coltsfoot

and ancestral memories.

Shadows excavate concavities

full of old secrets

Before the flint, the sea.

The hills boom.

- on prose with my chaperone

M Smythe 80