My Helping Hand
I am sat on a plank of wood
It is described in the Time Out book
As 'a stile made of metal scaffold poles'.
I look at the metal poles some feet away
The rusting steel does not appear to me
To be the art of any scaffold that I know.
And the fence..
Let us examine the crossing between fields
Here are two wooden sticks joined
By a connecting wooden log
Encased by chicken wire
Without a joint- hence no stile.
What do the directions mean
Within the compass of life's path
(or even Walk Twenty three)
should we follow like flocks of sheep
over stiles and kissing gates
are we mindless? (No, not me).
It's easy to slip into a routine
With discipline the whole way through
And miss the sights on yonder fields of green
Jerusalem can yet be seen.
So let us wander on the paths we carve
Like streams that flow on a changing track
And discover unconventionality
The way we long to do
Explore new fields that we've never seen
Despite crossing them before
With eyes afresh we see new land
This stile's my helping hand.
May 25 2002
Otford to Eynesford