Gypsies

The motorway cuts through it. It was always

a proper Cheshire country lane with

ditches and hedgerows of may and oak

but it remained an unpaved track subject

to the weathers. Travellers or Roma –

though ‘Gypsies’ or ‘Irish Tinkers’ we called them

then – with grass for their hirsute ponies,

their caravans obscured by the hedges

and their shy kids safe from the odd car,

would camp there. We would try to explore,

to find where it led, hoping for some mansion

occupied by GIs with their comics

and gum. But, each time we tried, one of the men,

the same one always – wiry, dark haired, sharp eyed –

would send us packing with a raised fist

and a curse. One summer, near dusk, we crept

as close as we dared. The man was seated,

on a stool, playing a guitar. Somewhere,

out of sight, a woman was singing.

 

We got a telling off, home after dark,

and my spinster aunt sang, unbidden,

‘I’m away wi’ the raggle taggle gypsy-o!’

 

I drive by what remains of the lane often

and always, out of the corner of my eye,

look – as if there were something to see

other than grass and weeds.