Beating the Bounds at Rodborough

Beating the Bounds at Rodborough 23.2.20

Viability bought to you by Brunel

Stage left, enter Mr Butler, on struggle and existence,

From bread marches to food banks

Through the Terminal arches of the Thames and Severn

We form a train

Robin redbreast demonstrates the Anthropocene

Through Corinthian pillars of plastic

Cupping his hand to sip Spring

While the 575 board attests to a

Dragonfly's disdain

Land use revealed in 50 bankside plants.

The Butterbur from Butterow Hill

Full tease ahead to raise the nap

Above the new reed in the Mill Pond

 2 frogs spawn in the rain.

Land explored along it’s boundary.

That old fallen beech climbed by Ivy and Tyrus

once heard the murmuration of the grain-marchers

Petitioning walkers to Cirencester

Toasted now by brewery Chartists.

Did you see The Bear? The Clothier’s Arms?

You were Fleece’d

Turn off the taps of the Military Tattoo

We made your red coats, now you tread us down

Down you go old Scarlet, Indigo the Navy

You were ‘pressed.

Restricted views of enclosed landscapes

Offered through peepholes for different sized folk.

‘we weavers require bigger windows than this’,

Routes trod by bonded labour,

Bonded now by gravel paths.

Meet Christine, teacher at a Glinton School,

Who met Trev at Roy Kinnear’s Fen.

Beryl Reid’s catchphrase is exclaimed

where Laurie Lee walked the Nailsworth stream,

Fleeing Rowcroft’s Chartered lives.

Beating the bounds with Radical Stroud,

from the grass roots sap rises

Returning we learn ‘now arriving at Acbot’,

Sit in quiet zone, pretending its first class;

I stick out muddy boots.

http://radicalstroud.co.uk/terminalia-beating-the-bounds-of-rodborough/