MUSHROOM SPRING

[One day stands out forever in
a happy country childhood]

Very early one Spring morning,
More than seventy years gone by,
Dad said: "Annabelle, get your boots on:
We'll pick mushrooms, you and I."
So I pulled my rubber boots on:
Shiny, brown, with pimpled soles.
Dad's boots were big, with hobnails,
Leather laced through lots of holes.

Mum was in the kitchen,
Both big brothers still in bed,
So we wouldn't be too many -
Just Dad and me, instead.
I fetched the seaside bucket
That was mine now I was four,
And Dad put on his old tweed hat
That hung beside the door.

Mum stood in the doorway
To watch us climb the gate.
She said: "I'm getting breakfast -
Hurry back and don't be late!"
The meadow grass was tufty,
Wet with dew in each tall clump,
And I jumped the biggest tussocks -
Both boots down with squelching thump!

The cows watched, chewing slowly,
Big dark eyes, like soft brown silk,
About as high as mine were.
Dad said "Soon be time to milk!"
We found the mushrooms quickly
By the white-flowered hawthorn hedge.
I knew the rabbits lived nearby
In the green bank at its edge.

First we filled my seaside bucket,
Then we filled Dad's old tweed hat,
And I thought how I liked mushrooms
Fried by Mum in rasher fat.
The hazels waved their catkins,
Black rooks shouted in the trees,
Dad took my hand, we scurried home,
And the dew flicked my bare knees.

The shadows fall. I can't recall
More knowledge of that day
When Dad and I both wore our boots
In the field where the bright dew lay.
But seventy years can't steal or fade
The picture that I see
Of a tweed hat filled with mushrooms
That were picked by Dad and me.
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