ENGLAND is old and in some ways deep.

England has more stories to tell than this.

It is a patch of temperance on the geographical scale.

But a broken castle book of history reigns here.

Flowing surface wounds cream into rain.

Into the rivers and seas, it steals.

And it washes the living shores.

And it sweeps the creatures living secretly.

There in the slow lapping rock pools.

This is a patch of temperance in the world.

Is not in people, nor has it ever been so?

I searched in the river of the Severn.

I left the trails in the air to vanish.

Counting the dots that were cows in the fields.

They do roam about in idle unknowing ways.

– Angela Porter, Cinderford