…was built on downland beside the golf course
and below detached houses in their own grounds
to house Italians from North Africa
and then, post war, Germans for ‘re-education’,
and, finally, before demolition in
the late ‘50s, homeless British families.
A kestrel hovers above the cow parsley.
It stoops, as always unexpectedly,
then rises with a field mouse in its talons
and flies to an oak tree to feed and rest.
In the distance are the towers of Woking
and beyond, in haze, the metropolis.
Our granddaughter is oblivious,
scooting on the small, empty car park –
too young and innocent for epiphanies.
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By David Selzer
