Friday Northbound
Another parent
offloading their worries
while I try
to listen properly—
all the while aware
Friday traffic
will soon begin building.
Now we are beyond Easter
they head north again—
towards Blackpool,
towards the Lakes.
A week of children
rebelling against something
they do not yet understand—
and staff
not always understanding
either.
Parents hoping
for a diagnosis
to make sense
of it all.
Burnley.
Blackburn.
Morecambe.
Schools trying hard
with too little.
Children carrying far more
than children should.
Traffic slower now
once the caravans
and mountain bikes
strapped to the backs of cars
begin heading
towards the Lakes.
Still the same road north—
though not
every Friday now.
I did not beat
the traffic after all,
but my favourite podcast
has dropped,
so all is well enough.
Keep thinking
of stopping at Tebay
for the food—
but the crowds
put me off
every time.
Better than
the usual motorway places.
The car full now
of laptops, iPads,
used shirts in a binbag,
and a backseat of wrappers.
Too much packed again
for the budget hotel.
Dog hair still somehow everywhere.
Ready now
to swap black work shoes
for brown muddy
walking boots.
Fields widening
the further north I go.
Stone walls returning.
Sky opening out again.
When I finally
turn off the motorway
I unclench a little.
Thinking about
the greenhouse,
the dogs,
what still needs doing
in the Upper Garden.
How the sprouts
have managed
while I was away.
Whether Tracy
remembered
to tend to them.
The fermented vegetables
should be ready now.
Whether the rabbits
have beaten us again.
Light still in the kitchen
when I finally pull in.
Home not dramatic anymore.
Just familiar.
Bruce barking first,
then ecstatic
in greeting.
And for at least a week now,
nowhere else
I need to be.
Holding
I sit where the summer house will stand,
a beer in hand,
a glow from it
after a day of pottering about.
Two rabbits, thirty feet out,
circling the field,
low to the ground.
One stops, lifts a stalk,
chews it down to nothing,
moves on.
From the trees, the rooks call—
their young hidden above.
Yesterday—
two buzzards dropping from height,
cutting the air open,
until the rooks rose up,
ten of them, loud and certain,
driving them off.
Earlier, in another forest,
a dog off the lead—
sudden, hard—
Ralph close to us,
still small,
a sound from him,
on the edge of bolting,
held there,
its owner only just holding it.
Below, Willie’s fire is lit—
older than me,
no pension to ease the cold.
Smoke climbing slowly
into the cooling air.
He'll be back on the farm
at first light.
In the distance, the caravan park—
people paying
to sit inside this view.
The chickens have settled.
Earlier, the springers ran the lawn—
Bruce, following the ball,
Ralph, all enthusiasm,
moving toward everything.
The private forest waits beyond the field,
still not entered.
Jazz plays—
May pressing in from every side.
And with it, the promise of summer—
grandchildren visiting,
fires in the long evenings,
marshmallows turning slowly
in the last of the light.
Further off, two children on bikes—
again and again over the same rough ramps,
falling, rising,
never far from laughter.
One day, my grandsons there,
cutting the same tracks
into the mud.
She is miles away now,
in another forest with the dogs,
so they will settle—
and still part of this evening.
We worked hard all our lives,
and now live in a house
built for more entitled voices than ours.
One day, one of us
will not be here for this.
The rabbits are still there.
The smoke still rising.
For now,
it holds together.