Ken's Poetry

Nuthampstead Airfield

On a high plateau
the old concrete grid
of runway and peri-track
cling tenaciously to the landscape,
occasionally a Cesna
or an old Jodell
circles then sweeps
down the runway.

The modellers
are flying their planes
on wires of ether
arousing memories
painted on this arch of sky.

Clay pigeons shatter
in the clatter of gunfire
and among hangers now gone
and the shiny backs of B17s
a ghost of a Yank
startles and turns.

Deer have been seen
loping the winter plough
pausing to listen, sensing perhaps
dull echoes from the past
when the skies roared
and these acres droned with activity,
when lorries trundled up the lanes
to tumble their load of local girls
like flowers on GI blue.

Big band sound climbs and falls
across the empty fields.