Crete Road East
A broken flight of stairs up to the farmhouse,
A scaffold, builder’s rubble;
Grass rough-lifted by the wind
Yet holds, pins the earth to the slope;
Trees crouched, aslant, and folded on themselves
Apparently untroubled.
On one side of the lane, the slide
Down to the railway lines and roads,
The circle of the sea beyond the cliffs.
The other side, above the house,
The old certainties of farm and fields-
Horses turned out in rugs;
Black sheep and white sheep, like chess pieces;
The whole a common kind of grandeur.
It is the past; and now; and, one hopes, the future-
Hills, heights, broken houses, beasts.
Let it remain unspoiled, spoiled though it be,
Forever, until the end of any time.
freeversefolkestone 