I've just worked it out: thirty three years
I've been coming here to get my mind
Above the ants' nest. Today I scrape my head
Against these thin winter clouds,
Grey and mauve, lilac and dappled white,
Backlit by a low February sun.
Below me bare trees like scuds of smoke
Above the burnt ginger of last summer's bracken.
No deer today, and few people up this high,
Though nearer the car park
Parents exercise their half-term kids by the brook.
My first time here with a bunch of friends,
After first year university exams,
We brought guitars and dope and
Japanese music on someone's transistor,
Lilting strings and flute on golden summer air.
Perfect soundtrack for a lazy hippy day.
Fast forward half a decade: on another summer’s day
I watched the sunrise from this hill—
Saw how the sun drew bright shapes from the mist,
Trees and buildings from the shadows,
Being out of nothingness—and took
My spiritual bearings from that dawn.
In yet another year we brought our children
On a frosty Sunday, much colder than this.
Deer huddled as we crunched through the bracken
Beneath these same beheaded oaks.
But today I exorcise my demons (and exercise my legs)
Before an evening class (e-commerce strategy for business)
And reflect on how easily a life drifts by.
I see that I am still, somehow, following
The bearing that I took one sunrise here
But I wonder: had that innocent young poet
Seen me and understood my comfortable present
Was his future, would he approve?
I think not.  But also think that I
Am really not what he became. He was
A product—creator too—of his time, place
And culture, as I am of mine.
When they ceased to be, then so did he.

I follow him, but I am not him.
Only this place endures, and these trees –
These great gnarled oaks that saw the last
Days of Jane Grey will likely,
In time, see the last of me.