Ways Through The Woods

"….. the path that looks
As if it led on to some legendary
Or fancied place where men have wished to go
Or stay; till, sudden, it ends where the wood ends."
Edward Thomas from The Path

"As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods …
But there is no road through the woods"
Rudyard Kipling from The Road Through the Woods

Leaving the new road behind, the tarmac and the woosh of passing cars, we took the track, clear enough at first, then less so, but always there even when indistinct.

Ways through woodland are like that, running into mud, leaf drifts, shadow, then found again along a stream or through an open glade. But always the old, lost ways are there too, but unseen. Clear but unclear. A track not taken because there is no track to take, though sometimes we were sure we were on it, or that it ran off to the side and away somewhere, uncertain but there in the shade or through the glistening sunlight falling through gaps in the leaves.

Until … that familiar woosh, in the distance as we neared the tarmac again running level through the trees over there, and the line of path running down to it, quite distinct and plain.

-*- "Why go straight? There is nothing at the end of any road better than may be found beside it"

Edward Thomas from The Icknield Way