In a Spinney dark and cool

three pallets made a hide,

the pain endured at home & school

could never reach inside.

 

A buckled form bent and broke

grey face toward damp earth,

betrayed a tongue that rarely spoke

bitten hard since birth.

 

Of love there was no knowing

just thoughts of what might be,

within a hatred growing

as if a raging sea.

 

Becalmed by isolation

swirling cold and deep,

like lands of occupation

great horrors it would reap.

 

Who hides becomes the seeker

or dies a lonesome death,

the sower grows the reaper

his pain becomes his breath.

 

Hate and Love are seeds of want

abandoned or embraced,

caressed or drowned before the font

nurtured or emplaced...