Our Green’s been tarmacked for a century
and now, some Sunday mornings,
it hosts a chunky cycle-rack.
Triathletes, card on backs, tear through,
run to the racks, grab bikes, re-form:
an arse of cyclists, pedalling like hell,
up Merlin’s Hill and on to Dale.
St. Mary’s bells, flourishing,
rise above the pedals’ clack
and a respect of worshippers
walks hymn-booked through the Green,
pays tribute to the statuesque, the still.
Inside the Londis shop,
I, Alistair, Ishmael and Morgan,
in our agnostic hollow,
scan headlines on the paper-rack,
chatter our satires.
Later, as we leave, triathlon’s straggler
scrambles through, clips an ankle on the rack
and pedals off, in pain, last,
but keeping going, keeping going.
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