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Arthur Woods Seeley, USA

Walking with Alfie

"This valley is a glacial gouge," I explain, and push my finger through the sand. "That mound, where the canal steps down the hillside, is moraine, debris dumped by the glacier, and that one, like a cone, a landslip." My hand peels back millennia. The green land buckles. "When the ice left, the whole valley became a swamp and people followed these old roads along the tops where all was forest." The warm wind tugs at the low tufts of heather. "There are the road and river, railway and canal now below." I point them out. We follow them with our hands, note how the flow of folk compete for way in the narrow bottom, through and over knots of bridges, embankments and tunnels, silent and distant; all intent and purpose. The moor swells and breathes in the wind.

Summer glitters on the heath.
A grouse rouses with cries of panic-
hearts leap in our chests.

We share the time, the place, the quiet, and walk a while without words. On the edge of the estate, in the plantation is green light and silent gloom. I show him fungus transforming fallen pines into pale slatted underbellies and plump-domed caps. Laid on a couch of needles, we savor the astringent tang, the silence, watch the dance of sky leak through high boughs. No birds sing.

Slow sap, thick and clear
oozes down the trunks of pine-
a trapped fly trembles.

Seeds from exploding pods of shook balsam pepper the nettles and dock. "Watch when I cut the stem, see, it's hollow and green elderberries always fit." We drop down and down until there are people; until cars, buses, trains and their metalled ways impinge. Later, waiting for the train, we debate ducks and dominoes and the unfairness of dreams. Green elderberries, shot from chuckling ambush, rattle on my back.

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