The Icknield Way reaches the coast

The line endures,
resistant, as an unworked seam of flint
following the chalk.
Iron salted, sprung from sea wash,
braided ghost road, liminal,
a trackway from a distal point in time.

Ancient industries, knife blade and axe and adze,
touch and retouch us
with patina of water, earth and air.
From stone to wooden henge
the traded arms, denatured, now by nature long forgiven,
knapped and tanged and darkly faceted,
transit through the years.

Here, now, the blade born hiss of grasses
meets the wash of sea,
and underneath the waves the chalk pale footsteps still tread on
their ancient, dusty path across the sunken ridgeways,
fractured ripples fading under the curlew’s bleaching cry.

Chris Michaelides was born in a village that gradually became an outer London suburb. She now lives in as small  and remote a village in East Anglia as is compatible with the daily journey to work. Music, time to look around and breathe deeply are precious.