THE
REMEMBERED VILLAGE
After
Mum and Dad's Golden was our first return.
We
drove through steady rain uphill but missed
the
turn, entered the village further west
by
the school, followed the S-bend past
hall,
vicarage, cross. Walked up the steepest
north-sloping
churchyard path. It was mid-August.
In
church, the numbers since Dad's time reduced.
After
I reached fifty was the second.
Late
at night, we drove uphill, northward, turned
in
by the school, the village western end;
again
the hall-and-vicarage S-bend.
The
missed B&B; the phone call, turn round.
Next
morning, in dampness, we were shown around
the
church, the steep north-facing slope of ground.
We
left the village at the eastern end,
Beacon
Hill, water tower; homeward bound.
Dad's
memorial service was the third.
In
a bright March morning, we drove westward,
took
the right turn; the water tower, crossroad,
again
right, swooping north and down, past wood
gates,
left, and left again into the farmyard.
The
party walked the unpavemented road
west,
south, uphill, the cross, the village grid,
the
steep north-facing path in the churchyard.
The
plaque unveiled, and many kind words said.
Then
path, cross, downhill, left at chapel, led
west
to where the Borstal had once stood.
We
saw the new-built road named after Dad.
So my lines. They'd make an
incomplete
map, lacking streets and homes once
known inside.
Returning took from memories no heat,
and the troubled return dreams have
not died.
The poem was written in December 2013 for the Holland Park Press 'What's your place?' competition. It has now found publication in Orbis 180 (p. 6). It has benefited, as poems in Orbis tend to do, from suggestions by the editor Carole Baldock.
You might like to read my earlier poem 'Wikipedia on the village' and the village's own web site.
