John Greening
Rutland
We all live in Rutland,
not only those who teach
at Oakham School
or those who think a day’s
cycling round the Water
is an escape.
We all live there, all
know the peninsula
where a church has survived
the rise of nature,
know the friendly face
of the TV gardener
whose paradise runs down
to the blue-green shore,
and all of us will make
the mistake of believing
we are not in Rutland
but at leisure
to peck the ozone
of our desires
and never be spotted,
for Rutland does not
exist any more
than the Greenhouse Effect
or ‘Gardener’s World’,
although she can make
a flat screen blossom
and can save Hambleton
Church. But Geoff Hamilton
died on a mountain
bike in her prime,
and these are the very marks
left by that dog
attacking me as I burst
one spring from her wired-off
bridleway. I should have
kept to the official route.
Rutting and twitching.
We all live in Rutland.
Page(s) 58-59
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