Category Archives: Loss

Tired railway sleepers

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Tired railway sleepers
From long disappeared lines,
Shoring up the earth in
My vertical garden.
In the frozen small hours,
Do your fibres vibrate
In time to the rhythm
Of the five o’clock train
Heading South to Nivelles
Or distant Charleroi?
Tired railway sleepers
From up lines and down lines,
From shunting yards and sheds
In the back of beyond,
From bridges and cuttings,
Tunnels and viaducts,
Do you still groan under
The weight of ghost wagons
with frail human cargoes,
Transported to God knows
What final solution?

February 1995

Demolition

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The pavement is empty where once the men
Assembled after Mass to chew the cud
And roll a stringy cigarette or two,
Exchanging incense smoke for nicotine.
The women chatted homewards in the wake
Of hungry children, full of Sabbath grace,
With all the hours of Sunday yet to come,
Spread out before them like a wedding feast.
All that is gone. Where once the altar stood
And candles burned before the Lord of Hosts.
The magpies stalk and heavy builders’ trucks,
Removing rubble, send up clouds of dust.

The demolition of our parish church.
Poem finished 27.3.89