Ode to a Style’s Lost Style

Inspiration is to be found in strange places and within strange contexts. This poem is dedicated, not so much to a stile alone and stranded between two fields, but to the disappearing hedgerows.

My wooden posts and sturdy rails
Once stood erect with shiny nails,
No knots or splits my step to spoil,
My treated wood withstood damp soil.

On either side a hedge – a feast
For sloe gin lover, bird and beast.
In spring the blossom smelt divine,
The elder flower made vintage wine.

Then Ivy came to stay for tea;
Her little finger wound round me;
And then she curled her hairy legs
Around my crafted wooden pegs.

Her arms soon strangled Elder’s buds,
And waxy leaves (that no-one loves)
Began to shield Hawthorn from sun –
The process of decay – begun.

No blossom, bees or spider’s web,
No birds to nest and leaves now dead,
The gaps entice the sheep to stray –
Decision made – the hedge can’t stay.

The farmer saws and hacks away.
The hedge has gone and now I pray
That footpath walkers will still see
Some reason to keep climbing me.

If not, then I’ll be slowly dressed
In green by Ivy, once my guest,
And when my step, my rail, my post
Are hid, then what am I? A ghost,
Redundant, hid by Ivy’s cloth –
Nought but a shape, a behemoth.