Follow the Road

Far along that road, in a whitewashed cottage, someone is waiting at the window, beside a bundle of letters that were never sent.

Each verse becomes its own picture along the way. Moths circle a wayside lantern until the sunrise outshines it. A striped balloon strains at its rope on a windy hill until the traveller opens their hand. A little green train crosses a stone viaduct, then rushes through a country halt without stopping. A stork sets out across the open sea, and a sun shower sweeps over a lake while rain runs down the cottage window.

By the golden afternoon everything that drifted away has come down in one place: the stork is on its nest and the balloon rests in the meadow. The chalk road winds over the downs to the garden gate, the door opens, and the two hold each other on the path.