Littlestone Days

Littlestone Days

After the golf, the bridge and the cocktails,
after the sets of tennis
with Noël Coward and the Maughams
looking on from the balcony,
‘Ah, the dear boys!’
after sherry and theatricals,
the dinner-dances and the outings,
after charades and canasta
and evenings with the gramophone,

you alone of them would turn your back
and cycle into the wind, then stride
your giant stride across that sacred name,
Dungeness, hiss of a withdrawing sea
across the shingle, the bitter waters,
exulting, sacred music perpetually
on your tongue
as you trudged to the Point
sobbing your pent-up grief-and-happiness

into the wind, for God’s abundant mercies,
in giving you such friends,
and this wilderness to walk alone in.
That is how I would greet you — had I
the courage, had I anything like the presence —
on your returning from an afternoon,
a bird count, having yet again
renounced temptation
out there on the marshes!

Stephen Romer