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POETRY
A Footpath Through the Wood
A long-distance poem of walking home
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A poem about 4 days walking from where he lives in the mountains of Wales to where I grew up in Worcestershire, A Footpath Through The Wood began as a poem exploring the theme of home, being unable to settle and a beckoning to return.
But it developed into a poem about belonging and connection in a time where we are disconnected from the landscape, from our communities and from ourselves. It’s a poem about alienation and individual, cultural and ecological identity.
The welsh word, ‘hiraeth’ summarises this strange longing for connection, a sort of homesickness for a time or a place or identity that has gone, or may never have been.
The title of this poem comes from the idea of connection being like a footpath that deepens with continuous use and fades in neglect.
cold is the pain of believing
warmth will never return
John Berger, ‘Eight Poems of Emigration’
…& remember
loneliness is still time spent
with the world.
Ocean Vuong, ‘After Frank O’Hara / After Roger Reeves’
