Wandering the Road

Wandering the roads. It has me under a spell even at this juncture in my life. Even when spiked brambles scrape my eyelids or those tender foot soles are being twisted by tooth-like stones. Quaint and angular they cluster mischievously among green shoots that litter every footpath. They lie in wait, in ambush for the absent-minded unsuspecting venturer. It goes with the territory for this seasoned footman of the road. The labyrinthine landscapes are house and home to the spiral lanes and clover clad hills rife in my area. Their rustic heritage now sacrifice to the orphanage of a malleable environment Crop farmers obsessed with harvest bounty. Restless developer pushing limits of an urban jungle. Fellow traveller in league with those fugitives from the cockpit. The pressure cooker of modern life. Town habitant with split loyalties who clings to tumults of the city but hankers after rural haunts of yore. Culprits one and all. A lair from the hubbub. Dwellings of the strangest kind huddle together like dots in a matrix separated only by a minuscule space. Their charm not yet eroded by intrusions of the steel plant genus. Brick and mortar athletes of homes in a jiffy. The more alluring aspects of tradition have been fostered and preserved. Among these are the shortcuts or bypasses of a different more sustainable engagement Sequestered passages that shave miles off perennial ramblers with a penchant for straying off course. Saviours of the clueless hitchhiker whose load saps his or her every energy. One’s eye becomes a lense to all these things hidden or supposedly hidden. Optic sensor to those trails just slightly out of focus. Those tucked away secret spots beloved of local wiseacres. They festoon far flung countrysides at random. Here there and everywhere. Posted ; April 2nd 2022