Passengers feel the train brake before they see,

from the embankment above the hectares

of marshes, the landscape begin to slow.

The many acres of grasses and flashes

have snipe, little ringed plover, lapwing,

water shrew, otter – and cattle grazing

at their edges. The River Sow flows

through the wetlands, and, far beyond the town,

joins the Trent, Ouse, North Sea. Between sedges,

low over pools in summer, swallows hunt.

We pass under the M6 viaduct,

its traffic relentless, silent above us.

On a low rise is the ruined Norman keep.

The annual Shakespeare festival

takes place with the castle as backdrop.

One of the Earls of Stafford was also

Duke of Buckingham, Richard Crookback’s

ally, implicated in the murder

of the young princes in the Tower.

Shakespeare has Richard, now King, ask the Duke,

– suspecting his betrayal – ‘What’s o’clock?’

Lastly Stafford’s two blocks of high rise flats

come into view, and the brick towers

of its nineteenth century prison.

Lesser figures from the Easter Rising,

Michael Collins among them, were held

in the gaol. There is a photo of them,

in civvies, suits and ties, crowded together

on a walkway, taken from below,

Collins fifth from the right at the back.

Someone has put a cross above his head.