Landmarks** (No.1 - A Solitary Poplar, Medway) Poem by Neil Young

Your constant point on this
Horizon, eager as a
Raised hand in the classroom,

Reaches over heads of
Trees, rooflines hunched like
Shoulders, uniformly

Grey.Rainclouds like a
Bully's threat, hang over
This dull afternoon.

That view marks an escape.
Our teacher curtly asks
Another pointed question,

Yet, in this sullen classroom's
Flickering electric light,
My hand is unresponsive.

Head down again, I hear
Reciting voices whisper
Passages from books.

Our cluttered minds like attic
Spaces hoard this junk.
Ironic, when some real

Decaying history
Is out there to explore.
Slow tortoise days prevent it.

Escaping on my own,
Humming whole symphonies;
Beethoven's ‘Pastoral'

Or the ‘Eroica';
I'd ride my bike along
Forgotten country lanes,

Past crumbling churchyards, villages
Whose names originate
In Saxon, Norman tongues.

Imagine if I found you,
I'd shelter underneath
Until the rain had stopped.