Crickadarn

From the top of the slope, among the desire lines of crows, looking down

to the house and its thought of smoke, you can see the Black Hills paced out into acres of field

like the blanket your Mum made depicting a hillscape that you used to lie on

before you were walking. And the farmers at their work, the flooded garden.

The abandoned barns, stone huts, tumbled cottages whorled like knots in the grain of the hillgrass

hold all attention, roofs folding in like the bags under eyes, some family’s long-vanished life

lost beneath the long, withdrawing furl of time, ebbing back into the pristine, melancholy landscape.

It might be possible to start a fire in those hearths, build a life

and excavate a quietness the size of this patchwork.