His grey hair wisping out
beneath the constant cap,
he hunches on the barstool.
Under a carapace
of half-chat and cliché—
The sun was splitting the stones.
He could make that fiddle talk—
his heart is blindly casting:
his words lifebelts, dragnets…
Then home by narrow roads,
entering the yard to find
every window lightless.
The ashes piling up.
Alone mug. Scraps and crumbs.
The clock ticking, ticking.
*
And yet he’s at the core
of things: watching over
calving cows; setting crops;
his silage pits distilling
meadows, harvests spilling
into grain-bins. And yet…
Sometimes, at odd moments—
maybe while raising
a glass, or tending lambs,
or flicking off fag-ash—
the years flash back at him,
as fresh as yesterday:
summers that seemed free of rain;
a match about to start;
dances, airy dresses.
And, sometimes, he’s jolted
out of roused sleep: groping,
dreams fleeing the bare sheets.