The way through the woods

When I walk to town, two miles or so, this is the way I go. In late spring the wild garlic flowers turn the path starry and richly perfumed.

I've taken the title of a poem by Rudyard Kipling of which the first verse goes

They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

This was a road once, a direct route to Fishguard from several outlying farms . It was wide enough for a flock of sheep and for a couple of carts to pass each other. Now it's used mainly by badgers and although it's designated a bridleway I've never seen anyone on horseback here.

An old man, now dead, told me he'd walked this way to school, a distance of roughly 3 miles there and 3 miles back, every day when he was a boy. I like to imagine him, perhaps with a satchel and hobnailed boots, dawdling along chewing wild garlic in the morning and hurrying home in the afternoon to do his share of chores on the farm.