<\/p>\n
Encumeada<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n It was the very last shot on the roll That night, you felt too tired, you said At half-past eight. We had spent the days Clinging, for dear life, to a mountain edge Serene, in jeans and a flower-print tee. <\/p>\n Grace<\/strong><\/p>\n If you wander down Platform Four, it\u2019s still there: Who polished the tall arched windows and doors? Who stacked the long vases with sword lilies and mums? Who tended the men before, on their way to War? The four hundred are recalled \u2013 at the eleventh hour <\/p>\n What can be created, can be destroyed<\/strong><\/p>\n In Wordsworth\u2019s time, they surveyed the land, From all around, they came, to speculate By Larkin\u2019s day, they came with balance sheets, In panelled rooms, behind spectacled smiles, <\/p>\n Division<\/strong><\/p>\n At ten, our year was divided in two, A and B <\/p>\n Two Limeys in a Carolina town<\/strong><\/p>\n As the afternoon heat gave way to evening\u2019s humid pall <\/p>\n Portage<\/strong><\/p>\n The Indians tramped the eight miles, That eight-mile tramp along the portage path We landed in the Indians’ wake, Two years on, we took once more to the sky, <\/p>\n Feature Image: Wordsworth House on Main St, Cockermouth, Cumbria, U.K.<\/em> Encumeada It was the very last shot on the roll Before the film disappeared into the spool \u2013 You, sitting on the terrace, on a three-legged stool. That night, you felt too tired, you said For a glass of vinho verde, and headed to bed At half-past eight. We had spent the days In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":273,"featured_media":12160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[1538,7115,7122,7123,7341],"class_list":["post-12121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-challis","tag-peter","tag-peter-challis-cassandra-voices","tag-peter-challis-poetry","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/273"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nBefore the film disappeared into the spool \u2013
\nYou, sitting on the terrace, on a three-legged stool.<\/p>\n
\nFor a glass of vinho verde, and headed to bed<\/p>\n
\nIn the laurel-girded hills, trekking the levadas<\/p>\n
\nUntil you had come to rest on that hotel ledge \u2013<\/p>\n
\nNext day, we went to Boca da Corrida by taxi
\nSo you could ascend, one last time, to the sky.<\/p>\n
\nThe Waiting Room. But Grace can\u2019t be seen anywhere \u2013
\nGrace, the Queen of the Ladies Waiting Room.<\/p>\n
\nWho waxed the oak benches and parquet floors?
\nGrace, the Queen of the Ladies Waiting Room.<\/p>\n
\nWho filled the sills with soapwort and sweet williams?
\nGrace, the Queen of the Ladies Waiting Room.<\/p>\n
\nWith barms, tea and blankets, on Platform Four?
\nGrace, and four hundred more, in the Ladies Waiting Room.<\/p>\n
\nBut who remembers Grace, and her flower-filled bower?
\nWho will put a white carnation for Grace
\nIn the Ladies Waiting Room?<\/p>\n
\nMen in stove-pipe hats and coats with tails,
\nTo plot a way to Bowness, and beyond \u2013
\nAnd ply the green between with iron rails.<\/p>\n
\nAs company shares begat more, still more \u2013
\nAnd rails were laid right next to Bassenthwaite
\nBringing Durham coal to smelt the lakeland ore.<\/p>\n
\nMen in grey trench coats and bowler hats,
\nAnd pronounced the railway could not compete \u2013
\nWith their consultant\u2019s report and doctored stats.<\/p>\n
\nThey approve yet more motorway miles \u2013
\nSee, now they\u2019ve tarmacked Bassenthwaite\u2019s shore
\nSo we can drive right up to Wordsworth\u2019s door.<\/p>\n
\nand then, A was divided again, and we,
\nour half of A (a quarter of the year)
\npractised verbal reasoning for the remainder
\nof our time at primary school, till we sat
\nthe eleven-plus exam, and half of those that
\nsat the exam went to the grammar school
\nand the rest to secondary modern school,
\nso that our group at grammar was one eighth
\nof our year at ten. At grammar, we were split again
\ninto A, B and C, and one-third of us
\nwere in A, which was one-twenty-fourth of us
\nwho were all together at ten. At sixteen,
\nwe were joined by some people from secondary modern,
\nincluding my friend. He said he was one
\nof those told he had failed at eleven \u2013
\na ball that didn\u2019t bounce, one of those written
\noff. I was one of those that bounced,
\nbut by eighteen I was well and truly trounced
\nby my friend, who went to study history at university
\n(while I went to work at the Pennine Hygienic Laundry).<\/p>\n
\nWe headed cross-town to the Hummingbird motel
\nFollowing the streets through the sprawling grid
\nWalk, Don\u2019t Walk; cross Main, First, Second, Third
\nAnd past the all-night liquor store, where a no-tooth man
\nSays, hey you, honkies (bony hand proffers a bottle of gin)
\nWe return a grin, and then a light \u2013 blue, blue, blue \u2013
\nWhirligigged, as two cops stepped into view
\nWanted to know what we were doin\u2019 in this vicinity
\nRealised we were two limeys, didn\u2019t know the city
\nWhere one \u2018hood ended, and another \u2018hood began
\nHow urban foxes scented the streets where they ran
\nSaid you walk there, you don\u2019t walk here (had a word
\nIn our ear), then drove us right up to the Hummingbird.<\/p>\n
\na crow-fly line from the squalling waters
\nof the Cuyahoga, to the eponymous
\nTuscarawas – boats on their shoulders.<\/p>\n
\njoined four worlds: Erie to the north,
\nand the Great Lakes; the Ohio
\nbelow – and the Gulf, deeper south.<\/p>\n
\ncame to the portage path to study –
\nto learn how the trail became a canal,
\nbecame a road – multiplied – grew to be a city.<\/p>\n
\ncarried our researches across the ocean,
\nthen on our backs, to a town, down home –
\nto rest there, with us, or perhaps be born again.<\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"