Park and ride

Riding the Metropolitan
Railway I think of Betjeman
rhapsodist of suburban dreams
where golden ochred autumn trees
decorate fading maisonettes
Here I'm a ghost whose journey's past
parallel lives I might have chanced
hanging, like prunes, from every branch
Hillingdon, Northwood, Amersham,
emptied now of aunts, friends, gran,
echo with part-remembered plans

Past Harrow, men play ball on a field
a wasteland has brambles and a horse
near Ickenham an old house in a park
a crumbling Middle Saxon manor
then a station amid half-timbered
homes

here sounds the motorway's call

Tom Rudge, Devon
Copyright: By application


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