March Train Journey, Norfolk
Some daffodils left looking at each other.
A grouse, sidling along trying to avoid its destiny,
overdressed in the fields
with the amazing white collar
and the bright red suit, blue tie.
A lolloping hare dashing off across a wide field
startled by the 2.30 pm train.
Newly-turned soil on allotments.
The cramped madhouses of railway-crossing cottages,
their haphazard cluttered gardens.
The Broads, where the land decides
where the sea ends and soil begins
and all the
time the sky has more to give,
more to deliver.
Nothing else is here.
Not worth breaking that horizon with trees,
their tempting silhouettes.
Only the station names huddle the landscape
into human order –
Reedham, Haddiscoe, Berney Arms, Lowestoft,
stuttering towards the coast
and the accomplished journey
towards that dash and thrust of tides.
* Pat Jourdan's latest book is the novel Finding
Out
and her poetry has been included in last year's Sutton Hoo Poetry Festival and the Voicing
Visions
Norwich Twenty Group Exhibition. Earlier this year her poem In the House of the Deceased was featured in the Daily Mirror. Her website is www.patjourdan.co.uk