Strictly speaking this wasn't a walk. It was a grim November day with frequent, freezing showers and little light all day. I had woken up hungover after a night spent eating delicious tapas food and dulling my senses with Spanish red wine. I was due to entertain in the evening and felt like waking myself up a bit.
I live in Harringay and for the past three and a bit years I have walked down the main street (known as Green Lanes, a thriving hub of Turkish, Greek and European food stores and restaurants) and passed an intriguing gated green space called The Railway Fields. It's never open when I go by and I'm always reminded of the Secret Garden. For all I knew it harboured hundreds of sick children and naughty little girls like Mary Lennox and their menagerie of animals...
Anyway last Saturday it was open and I took my chance.
Walk No.2 - The Railway Fields, Haringay; a Local Nature Reserve of c.1ha: 28th November 2009.
A steep ascent into the unknown.
Sudden silence as I step into the undergrowth - where did the sirens go?
A narrow strip of paradise; nature boxed in.
An adventure playground, the wood slippery and rotten, the swings forlorn.
A meeting place, a hut, currently shut, but come back on Tuesday for tea and gardening.
At the top end the trees collide, my passage blocked.
An abrupt ending.
An about turn.
And back to the bright lights
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Seriously, these 'walking poems' are brilliant like gems.
ReplyDeleteEach line feels like a step, with a little pause in-between, and the pause is in fact suspense, because you (the reader) don't know where the following step is going to take you.
Is this an original idea of yours?