London loop stage 2 Bexley to Petts Wood 10/1/20

Fudging the map, heading south and

west, touching London’s flank, in park

and path, scrubland, ill-kempt woods, mud.

Bexley to Petts Wood up the Cray,

(tubby dogs with tubby owners)

crossing the city’s outspread web

of pumping arteries, road and rail.

Weather? Home-counties, covered

grey at first then lightening to a

foretaste of the spring, no pleasure

now but harbinger of global

death. The river flows Thamesward, clear.

At Foots Cray church the verger plans

an ash interment, tidies plastic

bouquets yet makes time to show us

round and give a bit of history:

break-ins, and Augustine on

the tide, heading north to tribal

darkness. And we head on to lunch.

Passing, passing, passing,

the dog now here, now there,

ears pricked, fractious, eying

a treat, nudging a hand

and then flat out asleep.

This morning writes itself in blank;

fence-post iamb, tree caesura,

as if the act of walking scrawls

a line across the page. Fence-posts,

trees, scribbled words; memorials

to quietened men, lost in the

endless wood till turned by time to

stumps for passing dogs to piss on.