leaving Footprints on Holy Austin's Rock

Memories of climbing rock houses of Kinver

They never failed to entrance,

Hanging there in sunshine or mist

like giant playhouses purposefully placed.

And play we did,scrambling from house to house

giddy with the sensation of climbing through 

openings that had once been windows.

Marvelling at doorways and cubby holes,

Scaling the walls, feet etching out furrows in soft red rock,

Out on the roof we sat quietly surveying the

scene below.

Imagining long gone inhabitants returning from a hard days work

smoke curling invitingly from the chimneys.

It was a good place to sit..

They remain entrancing

Restored as they are to habitable state

But fencing prevents the exploration of walls and roof,

They are no longer the playhouses that we knew,

Our children cannot walk where once we did.

The imprints of our feet remain like timeless graffiti

But we feel no sorrow at having put them there.

We were explorers after all,

We came , we saw , we climbed....

we left footprints