The Rock Walk

My watercolour painting of a tree on The Rock Walk.

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Nature's Sculpture Gallery,
was how I thought of it
and wondered who'd curated it,
what genius had had gathered these exhibits
and what s/he'd meant to show.
The Rock Walk, it was called,
which was perhaps a clue.

An inland cliff. A narrow, sandy path
descending -- always wet --
with, to the left, a wall of rock,
and to one's right, a drop --
in places sheer -- down 
to a wide and verdant vale, floor
thick with grass, the edges
rich in many forms of tree
and matted undergrowth.

And yet for me the Rock walk
beat them all, was more than just
a route down to a valley floor.
Boulders of every shape and size 
with calligraphic marks and signs,
most blotched with mosses,
wrapped in ferns and liverworts
and written on with lichen signatures.
Simple geometric shapes were there.
Exhibits too, of subtle or of tortured form,
trees interspersing them -- 
the world of text turned inside out:
characters to punctuate
a script of punctuation marks.

Had that been all, the fascination
would have been complete,
but then there were the roots!
Roots like snakes, like strings
on fossil lutes, unworldly instruments.
But everywhere the sinews stretched
and wound round tree and rock form
to create a wonderland in what
remained and dark and clammy place.
Strangest fo all, perhaps, the songs
from hidden birds. They never failed.
I often wondered why the birds
did not prefer the sunlit glades beyond.

The Rock Walk is -- or was -- part of the scene at Wakehurst Place, otherwise known as Kew in the country. I visited Wakehurst again a year or two back, after not having done so for a long time, but did not seek out The Rock Walk. They had made some fundamental changes since my previous visit, and so I have written this in the past tense, not knowing if the walk is still as I recall it.

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Written for Mary in Poetics at dVerse Poets who has suggested either Leonard Cohen or a favourite place as our theme.