Forget Yourself

[graffiti on the back of the ‘Welcome to Bestwood Park’ sign, seen at the end of a long amble]

Forget yourself in a trance of dappled green,

emerald-opal leaves luminous in late afternoon light

Forget yourself in a tangled womb of rhododendron,

their flowers filled with such startling flames

Forget yourself in the lapwings calling their weird curling cries, 

soaring and hovering and colliding 

flashing-fluttering black-and-white

Forget yourself in a dark cavern yawning in a steep bank,

waiting for moonrise, for snuffling shapes 

silvery and sinuous 

to creep from its mouth

When did we last watch the chestnut leaves

emerging from their sticky buds, day by day?

When did we last lean in to kiss the rowan blossom,

its scent sweet with a hint of decay?

Who are we when our architecture is dissolved

and time stretches and oozes in its syrupy way?

Forever rushing to some other place - 

But now there’s nowhere to go

Nothing to do

No one to be

Now, maybe, we can learn to stay.

Harry Martin