With winter blanket falling deep
and crisp across the icy ground,
the road has brought me up a hill
and here a bridleway I've found.

I stop my horse; we turn and stare
down its black, winding thoroughfare.

Along the road lie village lights
that glitter in the midnight dark;
the hoof-prints now are veiled from view
as tumbling flakes conceal their marks.

The bridleway snakes round a bend
where looming mist tonight descends.

The road shows me the flowing hills
and valleys, hushed, all painted white;
this road leads forth to restful fires -
the bridleway to frozen night.

Untouched, its path is thick with snow
enshrouded from the moon's dim glow.

Far up its silent track, I glimpse
a farmer's fragile, wooden fence
and stile between the field and trail
in bramble hedges, high and dense.

Dismounting steed, to gaze and stand,
I hold the reins in frosted hand.

The soughing wind - the only sound -
then groans across the farmer's gate;
the trees and thickets, draped in snow,
are bowing with their winter weight.

I leave the road, towards the track;
my horse though tightens up the slack,
and reins in frosted hand pull back.

We follow the bridleway that dissects the growing field of wheat, now dark green and vigorous after it's Spring dose of nitrogen. Pass the smouldering ruin of a bonfire which has been awaiting the torch for weeks. Charred black are two big sections of oak trunk which I considered purloining every time I passed, but decided they looked too heavy to move.

Reach the road, rein in the dog's lead, turn right. The thatch I renewed a few years back is definitely not looking new any more. Past the houses, past the one where the whistler lives. All the way across the wide East Anglian field I often hear him trilling, when we are both pottering in our gardens. He has a brick outhouse, probably a former loo or wash house. A thrush is sitting on top of the chimney and a blackbird on the weather vane, they look about four feet apart. I pick up a lager can, crush it and slip it in my back pocket. A pigeon climbs, claps its wings and glides back down. Jogger's footsteps catch up from behind. It's the chap who owns a Harley Davidson.

I turn back into our lane, a skylark is singing loud and clear above us to the left. A rabbit dashes across the lane a few yards ahead, disappears. The dog's ears go straight up and he eagerly sniffs its trail. Back home.

If there were a heaven
I would want it to be
Like the lunchtime walk we did today,
Little Bear and me

We took the bridleway as signed
Through a cottage garden
Someone had a mower going, the first cut of the year
We slipped through unnoticed,
Me and little Bear

The path went by a natural brook
Below a sloping meadow
And led up to an ancient wood
Beside a well-clipped hedgerow

At the wood we paused
It looked inviting, dark and deep
But for now its secrets it would keep
There was work to do,
A heap of straw to sort and lay
So that adventure we will save
For another day

That adventure we can save
For another day

A mood is lifting,
As we tilt our chins up to face the rain.
This bitter detox has been hard to swallow,
A new range of old stone tablets,
Decreeing buy and sell, buy and sell,
And that everything can be owned.

We have defined ourselves
By the patterns of the weather.
Capricious friend, my book companion;
Steer with me now, across the bend
And into insanity. We can embroider
Limbs over our Sunday mattress,
And salute the new week
In ****** and teenage songs.

I’ll take you through the bridleway.
These approved paths of nature,
Contrived and confined by beaten mud
And memories of the 585 bus departing.
I will hold your hand
But not hold you to anything,
Freeing up the paths you made
Before ours intersected.

Yes, and take me to that barren farmland
Where you learned to drive.
The mud-splatter and swearing
Contained within it the only happy memory
Your father ever gave you.
This mood is lifting as we indulge each other,
As we laze into love;
As we warm by the flame.