At Stratford On Avon Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Centuries melt like winter snow in April
A phalanx of determined shoppers
Shoe horned into a queue,
Jibber and jostle past The Falcon, Scholar's Lane
Sup ale at the Black Swan, the thespians' Dirty Duck.

Stop up your ears, block out the here and now
Can you hear the jingle of horse?
The clop of hooves, as soldiers march
To blood-let in Civil War

Down Burial Lane, the Plague pits
Fill with dead, topped up with quicklime
Turfed and unnamed villagers
Tossed aside like rotten apples
Softening in an orchard