Hi Arthur,
A canny piece! I'm softened by its tenderness. (Like one or two other 
comments I could alsmost see haiku hidden in the prose bits - but that 
doesn't mean they should become haiku - it's just that I'm reading it all 
and recognising how it works in its present state).
I like the feel of the piece, the images, the way I'm stood with Alfie and 
seeing what he sees. I guess that's because of the subtle shift from writing 
"I" to writing "We." I also like, as it progresses, the mentions of "old" 
things diminish... and it ends with not-yet-ripe elderberries (a subtle way 
of backgrounding age - and reversing the aging process through the poem!)
I've wondered more than once, though, about "until cars, buses, trains and 
metalled ways impinge" because the "metalled ways" feels sort of clumsy... 
sort of "all these things travell ON metalled ways..." and the phrase 
"metalled ways" sounds sort of a bit poetic (a miniscule nit, but a nit none 
the less!).
But it's canny!
Bob

>From: arthur seeley <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New Sub: Walking with Alfie ( A Haibun)
>Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2003 20:10:58 +0100
>
>Walking with Alfie. ( A Haibun)
>
>This valley is a glacial gouge, I explain, and push my finger through the 
>sand. That mound, where the canal steps down the hillside, is moraine, 
>debris dumped by the glacier, and that one, like a cone, a landslip.
>
>My hand peels back
>millennia.
>The green land buckles.
>
>Then the whole valley became a swamp, I continue, and people followed these 
>old roads along the tops and all was forest.There are the road and river, 
>railway and canal now, below.
>I point out each. We trace them with our fingers, note how the flow of folk 
>clamours for way in the narrow  bottom, through and over knots of bridges, 
>embankments and tunnels, rush, enveloped by intent and purpose.
>
>The moor swells and breathes. The afternoon glitters on the whin. A kestrel 
>hovers, flips and scythes down-wind. We share the time, the place, the 
>quiet, and walk a while without words.
>
>In the plantation is green light and silent gloom. I show him fungus 
>transforming fallen pines into pale slatted underbellies and plump-domed 
>caps. On the resilient couch of needles, with its astringent tang,  we lie 
>and watch sky leak through high boughs where no birds sing.
>
>Seeds from exploding pods of shook balsam pepper the nettles and dock 
>.Watch when I cut the stem, see, it’s hollow and green elderberries always 
>fit.
>
>We drop down and down until there are people; until cars, buses, trains and 
>metalled ways impinge.
>
>Later, waiting on the platform, we debate ducks and dominoes and the 
>unfairness of dreams. Green elderberries, fired from chuckling ambush, 
>rattle my hood.
>
>It is that season.
>My childhood
>is a gift for him.

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