In the years following the death of my friend and colleague Les Arnold in 1992 I wrote a poem in 31 parts which is based in part upon the Cotswold landscape looking towards the chalk of Salisbury Plain and that centres upon Arnolds Wood – a small area of woodland that I and his family and colleagues planted in his memory.
Section from Arnolds Wood
As we walked here
on the castle mound,
you told me you felt
you were walking
into a black tunnel.
now the strange, delicate
pink and white cyclamen
is out by the ivied stump
where I walk between classes
to rest my mind.
It is a quiet time
when light shining on the walls
seems to fall through centuries
picking out one question:
how to shape a life.
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