Naseby, 2008

A Maytime full of memory,
Of Eurostar and travellers’ tales:
A Provence of insect men not Mayles,
Of Vieux Télégraphe and the other red-nosed,
Big hearted vignobles of Chateauneuf
Captured on a postcard

A tour of the terroir Anderson – proud and comfortable –
Garden, sèjour and library;
A meeting with Mother; sherry proffered but pended,
A lunch of local hams and cheeses, of Harborough curd tarts,
The essence of gentility,
And thence, the battlefield tour.

The Colonel and his Lady
In the Vanguard of our party,
Facing up to the New Model wind
And the opportunism of dragoon’ed trees swaying
Against the cavalier horizon

And at a parallel moment,
Somewhere else in the cloisters of history,
Stand some Moss Close boys in the Lichfield Street flat,
Searching for forgotten Merioneth roman roads,
And there in Tomen Y Mûr’s shadow,
John points out the road for us,
Our faces beam.

Veritas Filia Temporis!