SHOPKEEPER
What a quiet time of year
he told me, for it was February
and the trees were bare.
Storms had blown even beech leaves
from hedges not a week before
and trees were down at the forest eaves.
What he meant by quiet was a lack
of visitors coming and going on the forest road,
stopping to buy in his shop full of tack.
He said it with his foot just inches
from patches of snowdrops blooming between daffodil shoots
and yards from the bird-table flurry of tits and finches.
In the distance the mountains glittered with snow.
His van was in neutral, its engine revving
with gathering speed. I watched him go.
I thought yes, how quiet it seems.
The sun glistened a dew-wet web in the hedge
and hushed the cold rush of the roaring streams.
(from : Poetry Wales Vol 31 no.3)
What a quiet time of year
he told me, for it was February
and the trees were bare.
Storms had blown even beech leaves
from hedges not a week before
and trees were down at the forest eaves.
What he meant by quiet was a lack
of visitors coming and going on the forest road,
stopping to buy in his shop full of tack.
He said it with his foot just inches
from patches of snowdrops blooming between daffodil shoots
and yards from the bird-table flurry of tits and finches.
In the distance the mountains glittered with snow.
His van was in neutral, its engine revving
with gathering speed. I watched him go.
I thought yes, how quiet it seems.
The sun glistened a dew-wet web in the hedge
and hushed the cold rush of the roaring streams.
(from : Poetry Wales Vol 31 no.3)