On Your Bike #12
Day 12
Thursday May 29th
Albert to Arras 64km
No words today. Too much sadness. Too much blood in this soil.
Readings by Edward Thomas’ grave.
From an interview with Myfanwy Thomas (1910-2005)
I remember the day the telegram came. My mother crying.
I remember wondering if it meant he wouldn’t come back. And then I remember, later, standing in the garden, and I said out loud:
“You didn’t come back. You said you would. But you didn’t.”
Adlestrop by Edward Thomas (1878-1917)
Yes. I remember Adlestrop
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop - only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
