An Autumn Walk

(The first draft of a new poem)

Late afternoon into early evening;  the sound of bells from some way behind me

seems set to follow me all through my walk.  Leaves are turning by now,

red and gold showing amongst the green, while

from somewhere the slow smell pervades of a stinkhorn fungus.

This morning has been wet, that mizzling wet that soaks everything through,

so that now the bracken and the rangy nettles are strewn with pearls.

There is a feeble sort of sun that seems itself to be made mostly of water.

A robin is singing, another responds, and still the sound of the bells

is there, chasing me from a steepled tower half a mile away and more.

Years ago, too many to think about, I used to walk this path;

nothing much has changed, or so it seems - certainly

the bells sound just the same, just

a new generation learning the methods, plain bob minor,

grandsire triples, all of that.  The names mean little to me,

but the sound tugs at my heart, where somehow I am still that boy,

kicking at the leaves and hoping for fallen conkers.

And now I have reached the high bridge over the canal, where close by

busy squirrels are laying quarrelsome claim to the last few hazel nuts.

Here is where I shall pause, and reflect on which

of three or four possible ways back I might take:

perhaps the high path through the wood, and then the towpath.

That’s the way I would always use back then, but there is a steep descent

and my knees are not quite what they were. 

A nearby sycamore has already lost nearly all its leaves -

yellow and brown, they crowd against my feet

as I look down to check my boot-treads and laces.

Ways back I might take;  how about

a way back into boyhood, into the innocence of those far off days,

with my aims and hopes and dreams as yet unblunted by time,

and everything still to happen?

The only way I can take is via those bells

and the memories they stir, and even they are partial now and fading.

“Forty years on, when afar and asunder . . .”

There is only the onward journey, from autumn towards winter,

framed in the frosting air and falling leaves, but with, still,

the hope of a spring to follow.