Journey out of the West

Watch man with his buffet bag
Drunk-stumble down the swaying train.

Outside
Hedges a green blur
And beyond them hills
Sunlit yellow and blue under cloudshadow
As we hurtle towards Birmingham.

A yellow field of rape,
A dark wood
A tree in splendid isolation
A crow alighting on a telegraph wire.

Now the sun has suddenly left:
Still on the horizon high-stacked cloud
Catches the last of light

Behind a field of grazing sheep
Smoke from a fire rises;
Sky whizzes blue-white in
Trackside puddles;
Trees deepen towards dark.

I am facing away:
What I see has already gone.

I'm backing away from the day,
Aware only of the past.
I’m blind to the future:
Where we're going
Is a twilight guess.

Christopher Warren
Copyright: By application

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