The ‘Lost and Found’

Maggie calls it

the lost and found park 

after her first visit there, obviously!

it’s quite a fair hike for her little legs,

past two fields that are gradually turning 

into new houses and

rather bizarrely, for a bridal path

across a busy road that appears 

like an equatorial river

suddenly blocking our path 

from behind the hedgerow,

then it’s a slippy footpath across some 

prime Oxfordshire plough,

the winter wheat just through,

pale green whiskery stubble

like a five o’clock shadow

poking up defiantly after snow,

before skirting Goldilocks’ 

chocolate box cottage

where we have to whisper and 

tread carefully as we pass,

precariously over the brook plank, the orchard

the new oak barn and we’re there,

there’s a party in the cricket pavilion

across the boundary

and in the near-distance,

somewhere a raucous howling,

someone is boning-up

on their poor bagpipe skills,

nearing Hogmanay no doubt,

on the way back, tired legs

complain unsuccessfully before

Maggie spots the old man

in Goldilocks’ garden and 

asks him if he’s her daddy

and more importantly where the bears are,

she’s told they are asleep

in the loft after their porridge 

and she seems okay with that

but we still need to be quiet

she says, as we tiptoe by

*

© Graham R Sherwood 12/22