In the Bluebell Woods ( Part I )

IN THE BLUEBELL WOODS AT SHOTLEY BRIDGE Shotley Bridge woods must no longer exist Though I looked for them often as an adult. Eventually I stopped looking fior the woods. However, I often recalled them in my mind’s eye, And relived the events of one afternoon When I must have been about four years old. It was summer, and like all summers Recollected from one’s early childhood It seemed an intensely hot affair. No indication that mum and I were going to escape The constricted terraces and cobbled streets of Gateshead, The vinegar factory and the tram lines Which were burning to the touch That hot summer’s day. How far? How long? Who knows? My child’s lack of time sense….. To tell the truth I may even have dozed off. But we must have walked some short way – All I can recall is suddenly Being in the tranquil cool shade of the bluebell woods : All the glaring heat And noisy constriction were gone. The air of the glade was deep and cool. It was given a life Other than just moving molecules of gas By some distant stream’s faint swirling sound - Like woodland fairies dancing on tissue paper, The air seemed to speak to me In the whispered language of the stream, And its soothing tones Caressed my hot four-year-old cheeks. With shoes and socks thrown off, My bare legs were soon damp from the knees down With brushing through the moist grasses Of the woods’ floor as I ran here and there To whichever bunches of wildflowers caught my eye. My eyes were drowned in the sea of green. Above my head was a sky completely filled With translucent leaves of birch and beech, And all around at shoulder height there seemed To be waving ferns at the foot of every tree. Undefoot, a spongy carpet of last year’s leaves And this year’s grass crumped slightly And sprang back into place As I passed by, As if I’d never been there at all. I can recall picking armfuls of wildflowers And dumping them on mum’s lap. So many kinds of flowers Came to my over-eager hands, And their names in those days were unfamiliar to me. There were spreading red campions In places where a little sun shimmered Down to the woodland floor. There were ox-eye daisies swaying proud And tall above the crowd Of golden coltsfoot.