In Elisabeth's short poem I particularly love the way she captures the melancholy, for me strolling quietly along the Golden Drop toward Eastwell Spring in Helpston. The site of the spring Clare wrote several times about. Melancholy because all there is now on the site Is an inspection trap, 'enclosing' the spring and channelling it away to a nearby ditch. 'Places the sun never quite reaches'. I must go back there and read her poem whilst walking up the old blind lane.
I’ve remade the distance back
through fern and reed tongues,
past Clare’s imprint, still in the grass.
Though all milestones have yielded to age,
their markers scrubbed clean,
I won’t go further along this lane.
Moss grows around the fox holes
and bird skulls by the hedgerows,
places the sun never quite reaches.
The poem is from At or Below Sea Level, a PBS Recommendation, 2019.
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