The Tawd ran, full and free, thro' a gorge
Flanked by oaks, tall elms and sycamores,
Full fifty-steps down from the kissing-gate stile
Opening stiffly and creaking. We picnicked here at Elmer's Bank
With medicine-bottled water and small bundles of beef-butties
Swung on and over the river by branches
Hanging low over the flecked and shadow-dappled water,
Branches of trees that twice saw the pageant of the skies -
Sun, moon and stars, cloud's drift and night's velvet.
We smoked acorn-pipes as we sat stolid and solid
Trailing a small stick on a string knotted to a longer stick,
The small stick riding the river-flow pulling the stick and scarcely moving
When fish would neither bite or rise and we despaired of it
We propellored sycamore seeds aslant beneath the taller trees
Or gathered big blackberries along the ochre-banks
Of small streamlets that tributaried the Tawd.
When tall or troddened nettles stung - with large leaf of dark-green dock
We rubbed the sting and eased and stayed the sharp hot pain.
The fifty steps were deep and steep and hard to climb
When we left the Tawd and walked the unused lines
Were wagon-ladened locos once rattled, chugged and chuffed.
On homeward way, between the sleepers of the rusted lines
We scratched and dug with small shoe and boot's heel
An indented cross that marked the spot where a small child
Had died - killed, we were sad - remembering the dead child.
But once we'd further-scratched the mark we remembered tea and ran
Hand in hand - pulling each other - alternately - to welcome, welcomed home.