In the homestead  farmyard Cindy sleeps

on straw in the hollow of a stone wall,

Her naked plastic  covered

with a  wedding dress of  gauze.

The  hap for cold she cannot feel.

Pink little pony, her protector, gazes out

At meadow grass he cannot eat.

 

Children’s games are visions too.

 

 

In the kitchen Micky  brings soup to the boil

Half • alone ,he   stirs thoughts in the brew,

While Janet  outside at the whetstone hones

A knife sharp enough

to cut any hand that grips askew.

 

 Nourishing the meal prepared by two.

 

In the garden ,under layers of old grass,

Thorn sprigs ,  clipped some winters ago,

Lie .Overgrown  they  wait  to pierce

fingers that may search that place

For a fallen keepsake.

 

 Sharper the pain from pricks unseen.

 

In the village, a one-legged jackdaw

patrols

Hill Street

,

Turning paper litter in the gutter over;

One eye on the perching crows  above,

He flicks sweet wrappers in the air,

With the routine hope of an old scavenger.

 

How comic the hobble, of one who flew!

 

 

 

In the   graveyard, ancestors meet.

In epitaphs , they hold  their peace and listen.

black granite words , green plastic wreathes,

are acts by which the living show contrition

For  what  was lost  when love’s  communion- cup 

Was broken at the  fountain.