Opening the Memory Box

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future…
                                          T.S.Eliot, Burnt Norton



From Pardlestone Lane across the hoof-patterned turf of New Ground
we descend the steep track that slices Willoughy Cleeve.
We hear splashing below us
long before the path tumbles into the ford.
After the crystal water, we turn right 
onto the well-trodden bridleway of Hodder’s Combe.
I think I hear the clink of iron on stone. Horses behind me.
The trees thin.  Space enough to trot on;
but the uncertain ground switches from boggy to stony to boggy
in the twist of a fetlock.
Turf churned on either side, a fallen tree trunk 
is a wayside jump or a tea break.

Walk on.

Across the next ford Hodder’s Combe becomes Sheppard’s Combe.
The sun slants sideways greenly across the Combe side.
The track shrinks. To our right 
a cuckoo scolds, another warns ahead high on Lady’s Edge.
Looking up I think the Combe holds up the sky.
Among the birches, the breeze gusts;
branches of shadow horses shy and canter.

Walk on. 

The stream tumbles beside us
gurgling and glittering in its deep course;
And everywhere the air is alive with birdsong.
I stand still trying to learn by heart this moment’s beauty. 

Time passes.

The track rises steeply above the trees sprinkled with Violet waymarkers.
I trudge upwards.
I am climbing into the edge of the sky.

And so to Bicknoller Post.

There she is waiting.
A girl on a grey pony
posing for a photograph.
He is beautiful.
He stands alert
ears forward,
ready as a coiled watch spring.

The girl is joined by two friends beyond the photo.
In my mind’s eye I watch them go.
The grey pony leaps forward.
He gallops and gallops.
The world is reduced to wind and mane and hooves and pounding and leather and pony.
They will gallop past Halsway Post to Crowcombe
before turning back.
I turn to the track
that will lead me back past Longstone.

They will reach Kilve years before me.

I put the photo back into my memory box.