I think of feet that tramp and tread waved hills,
of stories, songs and poems stone tracks inspire,
of creatures great and small, the shouts and trills,
of men, myths of monsters, faeries, giants.
A million years and more, they’ve stood to brood,
a vale eruption, ridgebacked, raw and proud,
they beckon, call upon us to intrude,
and haunting bluebell oceans trumpet loud.
Yet when I climb those taxing slopes once more,
to see the valleys spread out far below,
it is like searching for an ancient shore,
that seeing through a spyglass cannot show,
the light and shade illuminated when
my eyes are dim and I shan’t come again.

Polly Stretton © 2019

The Poetry of Worcestershire (Offa’s Press 2019)

Malvern Hills