Jake’s Place

 

Arriving after rain

we had to duck under wet low hanging apples

to find Jake’s place, cleverly tucked away

along a narrow, pebbled path,

the South Hams appearing to unfold

like a map before our eyes

a green patchwork, gently undulating

from the garden hedge.

 

Start Point light in the distance

a solitary chalk finger, blinking

at dusk as the sun was setting,

its twenty-mile warning flashes

three-short, three-long, three-short.

 

We gradually became accustomed

to the property’s gentle breathing,

the knocks, the taps

the heady smell of sweet wood

and with the wood burner lit

the cottage began its conversation

as we listened cradling Bathtub and tonic

 

After supper, pasta and Morellino di Scansano

we were both surprised at how quickly

after some thirty years

we remembered the rules of cribbage,

fifteen two

fifteen four

two for a pair

one for his nob

your box.

 

Pegging spent matches

on the Wills’s Star  cigarettes board

that still reeks of smoky pubs

 

© Graham Sherwood 10/2018