I walked today for walking’s sake
along the former railway line –
heading out cross-country
away from house-backs crowding in,
past schools and smallholdings –
cut and banked, civils large:
a theatre of citizens ~
Some seemed intent, but most friendly:
the steppers, joggers, dog walkers,
pairs of red-faced cyclists,
that little girl on her first bike
hurtling to her mummy –
and just this once a man
with on his arm a hoodless hawk:
A gimlet glance from the absurd ~
Out facing the wind, then back, I
shook off a winter’s lethargy
between the cross-ways and the wye
Maintain the Advance! 