The Lane Knew Who Was Missing

The stone is still there. The share has gone. A parish that only answers on a Friday has not died, It has been let.

Bert Tovey’s shed, the Colonel at Barrington Park, and the other clock down the brook, where the old men still argued about the deer.

A guy in the carrier’s hat, a rocket that went horizontal over the causeway, and the winter habit of sending a boy with broth.

Banner, beef, a cornet nobody wanted to lose and a sack race decided by a fall. The hurdle was still there at Christmas.

King George at the bottom of the garden, a plate sent to Windrush, and the roast that brought Sherborne over first.

Gleaning day on the Windrush meadows. A spare sack that was not spare, carried to a cottage where the lane turns for Sherborne.

Fred Phelps the carrier joins the four places and a boy sent for yeast comes home educated. The bus was quicker. It did not ask after your mother.

The parish had a middle and it was not Burford. An old man walks the causeway, the school bell, and the Sunday coat that was spoken of like a small yacht.