The villages: Sproughton

She knows, she knows everything,
she has the key to my youngest years.
She is tender with it, she holds it gently, like precious life,
and I can hide myself
beneath the warm lengths of her willow
over water
for a day and a night and a day and a night.
I speak to her,
with such fond honesty, one couldn't fake, one I don't offer to the others.
She knows it though it doesn't offend me
as she shares all of her affections, her mysteries, as equally
as mine.
She taught me, that short, slightly portly sort of farm stock,
when I knew no more than how to pick up small catkins, at their driest,
and blow them into a north wind.
She taught me to bury parts of my mind, in wooden boxes using marqueterie,
as if she'd done it herself, and would do it again,
given the chance.
She taught to me feel safe,
in a way no one else ever has, or will.

[Artwork: Jim Peck]