The Signs Poem by Howard Pipe

Now the sleepers lie no longer,
and cinders, cold and lifeless, remain.
Coal black smokestacks and the ghostly screech of brakes
flicker as memories fade.

Signposts chase the distance,
and follow tyre tracks
scorched into tarmac. Evolution is a carriage
as it races the highway.

Untamed edges brush scrub
and tangled hedgerows,
where regrowth continues as before;
a fingerpost points

to open access
and a track touched by trees,
and wrapped in
rolling hills.