Beyond the brook, in the woods, there are huts.
Grey, empty eyed, with crumbling mouths,
scattered, separated, almost forgotten.
They sit alone, abandoned and abused,
besieged by pine and birch.
Ignored by walkers, they wait for soldiers, long from war
and as they fall, the scavengers come, to strip away any worth
until all that’s left, are empty shells, and broken bones
slowly rusting into the earth.
I’m writing about home again tonight. Dotted around my parent’s farm are a number of old army huts that I knew were once part of an RAF base, but were crumbling away to ruin. It turns out that my parents farm was partially built on an army base that was constructed in 1915 and served a fair few purposes over the years, including a prisoner of war camp at one point. My first few driving lessons actually took place on two of the three runways that made up the airfield, one on our neighbour’s land and one that runs along the edge of my parent’s farm.
If you’re interested here’s a link to the Wikipedia page. Despite living beside those huts for twenty-one years I don’t seem to have any photos, I’ll have to have a wander around them next time I’m in the area and take some so I can show you. I might even whip out the old history head and do a post with footnotes and sources! Until then I hope the poem suffices.
Oh, and it’s in response to tonight’s DVerse Poet’s challenge to write a piece using Trimeter. I think I managed it.
Carol J Forrester - Writing and Works 
I like how these three phrases which I read as trimeter tie this together: “besieged by pine and birch”, “to strip away any worth” and “slowly rusting into the earth”. Those photos of your parents’ farm should be interesting and inspire future stories and poems.
How fascinating. I should think they must have been great magic places for childhood games. Can’t wait to see the photos!
Nice piece of history so poignantly expressed!
Very interesting, Carol! I liked this line: “Ignored by walkers, they wait for soldiers, long from war.” Nice take on the prompt!
History is interesting when it’s personal. I used to work on a ranch that had an interesting history in the civil war era. Your history certainly made the story a great deal richer
Ooh.. here’s to the unsung heroes!
Haunting images, Carol. What a place for your imagination to grow. I love the personification of the huts with their ‘Grey, empty eyed, with crumbling mouths’. You can’t help but feel sorry for them:
‘scattered, separated, almost forgotten.
They sit alone, abandoned and abused…
and as they fall, the scavengers come, to strip away any worth
until all that’s left, are empty shells, and broken bones
slowly rusting into the earth’.
A sad reminder.
History and Herstory are always with us, even if unseen. A great reminder.
Perfect trimeter, Carol! images of insistency.
Thank you. It took a bit to get my head around the form.
That’s That’s fascinating poem. It must be exciting to live in a land of some historical value, at least for sometime. I love how you talk about footnotes with such enthusiasm.
Footnotes should be treated with enthusiasm. There doesn’t seem to be much written about Tilstock Airfield but I’ve found a couple of books so I’ll probably write a post over the next couple of weeks to put up.
That’s good to hear, I’ll expect them with excitement!
I like that you breathed some life back into the huts. Next time you go home get their picture. There will be stories amidst those huts.
I will indeed. I’m going to rope my sister in as well, she’s got the better camera skills.