Escaping to between........................22

I purse my ?3.80.
in sweaty palm, wondering
how many others have warmed
these hard cold metal chinks -
maybe you, even.

A large shape
lumbers round the far bend,
but it's a skip lorry
for the landfill site:
"Waste Away" it says:
Tinkerbell alive and well
in brand name land.
It snarls past in stink of exhaust:
grit makes my eyes run.
Two more, before the bus
heels round, a great white whale
barnacled with ads
for a local car dealer.

In the foeted air, going somewhere
I remember taking this trip
in Spring: fields unrolled green gauze
down the chalk hill's back,
before I'd met you.
Then in Summer, baking the slopes
of crops like rising bread below
as I hoped I'd find things to buy
to make me seem pretty to you.
Now, vast robot beasts crawl,
their droppings bales in rows
to feed sunless Winter cows.

Suddenly, I feel trapped by this present surpassing past -
long to get off
the bus, press
STOP

Out, off, free
in the middle of between
places, at the road's edge, on the "useless"
grass, wildflowers grow: undaunted
though unwanted,
flourish in wanton grace.

A few paces on there is a growing wall
of bindweed covering
a man made fence,
healing your silence with its great white trumpets
of quiet