Gathered In - Beeston Castle 1956 Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

Days of dust and hayseed set aside,
For once a gradely jaunty family ride.
Let's take a Sunday tootle in the car
And leave awhile the drudging, aching farm,
Where slog and maul are sanctified.

Ahead stand Beeston Castle’s broken walls
By Four-Lane-Ends and Bunbury Heath -
Beyond the fields and oaks the evening falls,
And trudging up, the plain is swath beneath.

Fifty summers now the scene divide
As hindsight strains to glimpse that far -
A family cut and kenched and tied -
Grey and faint the snapshot evening star.

Ashes scattered, stubble standing wide -
Seasons past, the scars of harvest hide