Cambridge to Cambrian Coast

© David Challoner

She wondered would it ever end?
Four changes and a wait at Dyfi.
Travelling since the crack of dawn,
leaving in doomy Fenland mist,
a watery sun low in the sky,
wood pigeons scarcely tuned in throat,
station guards blowing on their hands,
cold now with hopes of heat to come,
and, oh, that apprehensive knot
of sharp concern; would trains connect?

Early morning and vast stretches
of moist, black soil on either side,
a straight-ploughed barrenness
out to the horizon and beyond.
No hill, no dip, just endless sky
as lifting fog up-curtains, proud
to reveal the East Anglian stage 
dormant, inscrutable, holding
its secrets close beneath the earth
yet to yield the region's choice crops.

Passing Peterborough's sprawling mass
(glimpse only of cathedral towers),
catch Scottish accents boarding train
while two German students ask, 'How far
to Birmingham? And will it stop?
Please tell us when. We go to see
the Jewellery Quarter and canals.'
More chatter, then a quiet falls
as rich Midland fields and woodlands
pass, spaced now by red brick villages.

England's heart, a rolling landscape
pegged out by ancient spires and towers,
and factory chimneys less grimy
today than in childhood memory.
Before Bromford, a sprawl of roads
interconnect round houses built
in haste, post-war, providing homes
for motor workers' families,
neat terraces and towers of flats
with now and then a shopping mall.

New Street looms proffering parallel
platforms; no problem here to find
your way, just rushing feet and crowds,
heads down, determined not to miss
connections north, south, east or west,
no time to notice concrete walls,
cocooned from outside elements,
rain, wind, sunshine irrelevant
'til, luggage stowed and new seat claimed,
the train pulls out to vistas fresh.

Short ride now across Black Country
coalfields, skirting West Brom, Walsall,
cresting the edge of Staffordshire.
No time to rest, palpate the pulse of
British productivity, proud,
dogged, taking no flimflam or
easy talk of redundancy
and merger, yet struggle etched
on each face and brick and billboard 
til laughter lines release tension.

After Wolverhampton, accents
and countryside soften to
Shropshire blend of undulating
farmland and early industrial 
enterprise. Telltale signs of
former ways of life - once thriving
canals now serene waterways
for leisure barges, an ornate 
ironwork bridge sole evidence  
of smelting pioneered close by.

At last, Shrewsbury's floral welcome
heaves in sight, station buffet
selling the first Welsh cake she's seen
this side of Offa's Dyke, and tea
brewed well in soft, western water
as if to compensate and soothe
travel weary souls now consigned
to a two hour wait in setting sun -
a dusk that will obscure the view 
of majestic mid Wales mountains.

And so it is that eight hours since
leaving Cambridge she travels on
into the west, roused from slumber
now and then at Abermule and
Cemmaes Road and Llanbrynmair,
til, more by sound and smell than sight,
she apprehends Dyfi's approach
as mountain shades recede, the lights
of Machynlleth are left behind
and soft estuary calls assault the ear.

Here the black, velvet-lined Cambrian 
night envelops all, man and beast,
train and track, inlet and creek
so that to quit the train, alone,
at Dyfi Junction seems madness,
an aberration requiring
stern discipline, heroic trust
and careful desire to avoid
the fate of being carried north
to Harlech's ancient castle walls.

She watches as the train departs,
hears the clack of wheels on the bridge
over open water and sand,
the gentle lap of small eddies
driven inward by mounting wind,
dogs barking across the valley;
now distant car headlights replace
the train's receding lights, then all
is quiet and brooding and wild,
a restless, watery, pregnant hush.

So once again Dyfi enfolds
its own; all Aberystwyth-born
children journey west to sunset
skies that slowly morph to darkness
where Taliesin's laid to rest
and Glyndwr's parliament is set,
judicious, between north and south,
and treacherous tides at Ynyslas
swirl round ancient shores as they wait
for a late-night homecoming train.

©Janet Henderson 20th February 2017

© David Challoner