we are pushing the rattling pram
piled with sticks, bricks and rags
through the shady lane noting
each oak leaf, each cow parsley,
how red the rhododendron’s blush
we cut down by St Leonard's church
where a distinguished woman in purple -
the same colour as the thistles
in Tilley's field, sits cross-legged
on the grass by the graves
she's sketching the church,
the flint and stone, the tiled roof -
we ask to see : she has exactly right the porch
with its boot scrapers, ornate timber framing
and cusped barge boards
and we head down to the woods
and in tunnels of leaves,
insects buzz, blackbirds sing
causing the air to brim with summer,
our boundary is the railway track
down to the bridge and the Hamble
where we gather up cockleshells
that I will later put on my sill
where they will gather dust as
they’ll lay unattended ‘til spring
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