Off the rails.

Off The Rails.

This used to be a railway line,
though now that’s hard to tell.
It looks as if it’s always been
a shaded woodland dell.
The rails were ripped up long ago;
forty years or more.
How quickly nature moves
to reclaim the crown she wore.
Where creosoted sleepers lay
the Rhododendron flowers.
Beech leaves in a breeze, a-sway,
throw dappled sunlight showers.
The cutting looks for all the world
like the dried bed of a stream;
but it was gouged with picks and bars,
by some old navvy team.
Slim saplings of the mighty Oak
grow tall as several men,
and seem to silently mock the days
when trains ran through the glen.
Fallen stones gleam green with moss
and form a bulging ridge.
Now, Stoat clan, dart among the ruin,
of what was once a bridge.
Tansy, Fern and Holly bush
grow thick where Rabbits play.
Young Foxes frisk; upon what men,
once called, the ‘Permanent Way’.