I would walk again a Dorset year

I would walk again those spring tides

The unsettling shift of shingle slides

And all the spray in rainbows spun

Against the high tide harbour flung

Dried seaweed crackles underfoot

A cuttlefish, a long lost boot

A razorshell, and old, tarred rope

The beached turtle of an upturned boat

My steps are swamped by the shifting stones

The air pungent with bleached fish bones

And the sea is wild and free and rare

Shaking horses from his hair

I would walk again those summer lanes

With leafy boughs and murmuring streams

And overhead in the whistling sky

A lark song lost to cloudless eyes

White campion, ragged robin, cow parsley and wild garlic

All choke the low brook and wreathe a hedgerow garland

And underfoot the warm, worn tread of stile and chalkstone

Climbing up across the harvested flank of the hillside

To find the view all lost in a late haze

Sweet slumbering landscape on which to gaze

I would walk again those cold autumn cliffs

Towering above the wind drowned waves

Their buttress trees all torn into shapes

While scattered crows shout down the droves

As blackberry pocked and flinty scree

The valleys clamber to the sea

A sheeps wool twist caught on the wire

The seagulls loud lamenting choir

The whip crack cold cutting through my coat

And sea salt burning in my throat

I would walk again those winter fields

The frost cracked branches bare of leaves

And slide across the frozen bow

To where the river slowly flows

Hugged by mist-hung willow trees

Catching dew-strung cobwebs about my knees

Across the bank a rook coughs twice

And beats a path home for the night

And under early stars and greenish sky

The first snowflakes fall and fly

And I am certain standing here

I would walk again a Dorset year