The Green Circle

A circle is an awesome thing.
Like most good things, it goes full swing
The circle starts, where you stand now.  
 
Move down an imaginary line,
Which thwarts and bends all sense of time
And goes against or with the clock.
But which direction’s best for you?  
 
Revolution in running shoes:
Takes you round and through and over 
But never just along and back,
Down harrow, country lane or track. 
 
Unlike a lot of access land:
This right to roam is green not red.
No private signs to instill fear.
Will keep you from exploring here. 
 
You can’t hope to square a circle,
Or just go round and round the block.
The Green Circle takes you onwards,
Interlinking both the lost and found.
  
Through places which remind us of:
A salmon swimming ‘gainst the flow,
Leaping high over concrete weir
To Exmoor, forty clicks from here.
  
Past archer’s tools at Flowerpots
Near football fields and veggie plots.
You’ll pierce the heart of Exeter
Where wooden ships once sought respite. 
 
The ship canal bisects the round.
The Exe Way, north to south, is found.
Allow your feet to take you east
Across the weir and up Exe Street.
  
Beneath the iron bridge, whose lines
Bring visitors across the Isle.
Hop off now, you’re at the station  
To Hoopern Valley from St Dave’s.
 
The land which frees, corrals us too,
Without a sense to start anew.
A stone’s throw from the prison, pass
By the General, whose watch won’t last. 
 
Go on now, through Bury Meadow, 
Above the brook to Prince William,
Past Ivory towers and planted flowers.
These faculties are not your own 
 
They are within the Uni spires
Where Redwoods tower above you.
Open your eyes to nature’s clues;
An arboretum points the way.
  
To Belvidere, Italian for?
A doorway to the Duryard where,
The Saxon lords had hunted deer
Whose name was once derived from ‘geard.’
Back through Dumnonia’s Saxon days,
  
Where Celtic tribes had fought retreat.
On ground since trod by Roman feet.
Whose Signal Station stands high up
On Stoke Hill, keeping sentry on,
  
The Dumnonii, deep valley dwellers,
Of Isca Dumnoniorum.
How many straight roads can you find?
 
Don’t go Mincing about the lake, 
Trace the stream til St Katherine’s Road,
Where nun’s hands grasped to pluck a meal
Near to the priory’s public brook;
  
You’ll run beneath its watchful eye.
While mind and movement keep all still. 
At Polsoe Bridge, you’ll find a halt,
Cross over to the playing fields.
 
Watch kids and kin kick balls with grins,
While joggers pass and cyclists spin,
And couples who go arm in arm.
All’s leisure, like a Sunday stroll.
  
Through Heavitree, where vagrants hung,
Unlucky few, who once defied
Convention, so were sentenced to
Hang here from the wayward’s tree.
 
 
The Ludwell Valley points you south,
And whose brook reveals the unseen
Leats and streams and fields of green, 
Which all drain down to miller’s wheel.
  
Here, paper made yesterday’s news. 
Beyond the new millennium
Though it now burns in smokey plumes,
Near Double Locks to quench your thirst.
  
Cross the tow path to the Alphin,
Besides the ancient Roman road
To Clapperbrook, where Dickens lived
Whose hand gave life to Copperfield.
 
Cross the heaving traffic boundary
Navigate, each stile, brook and gate.
Quicken the heart whose rise and fall
Echoes contours, all weather bent.
  
Carousal on a carousel,
Whose wheel of fortune pokes its spokes,  
Down mud lanes, and ancient hallows 
Unbridled paths, permissive ways.
  
O is to flow, and to loop the loop.
Gyrate, rotate, circumnavigate. 
By now we tread with veteran feet
Upon the soil that’s wet with peat.
 
Through the Barley Valley we head,
Where Roly Poly hill awaits.
And Redhill’s panoramic views,
Reveal the city’s skyline now. 
 
On your bum you’ll slide, helplessly,
So keep your wits in head and feet.
It’s not a place for flattened souls.
Pass the crematorium gates. 
 
Don’t hesitate to glance backwards,
At the fallen, who gave their last
For Commonwealth. They rest in peace.
Now the circle’s almost complete.  
 
Perambulating in full sight,
Towards the city’s skyward lights,
Glowing lanterns in depth of night,
You’ll find your feet have found new rights. 
 
The secrets of the land have revealed,
What private owners see as law.
Where feet can’t go, our eyes have shown
The cryptic stories nature tells.
To run the round’s to pull the bow, 
And then to aim time’s arrow
Along an imaginary line
Which now defies all sense of time. 
 
The round can be found or followed,
But not with a compass needle.
Memory’s map is all you need
Your feet upon the ground will feed 
On instinct, once its secret’s spilled.
  
A circle is an awesome thing.
Like most good things, it goes full swing
You stand now where the circle ends.

By C Rees