West Hill Haiku
The sign on the gate
tells the living passing through
when they can do that.
Smell of new-cut grass
and the spring’s importuning
is what the dead miss.
The cat on the slab
licks herself so daintily,
leg at attention
An ivy-smothered
headstone keeps its own counsel,
may be worth reading.
A primrose is what
that bright tissue turns into
when you look at it
Would the dead enjoy
their sudden, raucous laughter –
those brimful students?
Two crows start squabbling
over a half-caught slow-worm.
One flies off with it.
The cut grass drying
in the late summer sunshine –
dead man’s confetti.
That mini-angel
might be a music-hall song:
one-winged and headless
Rain on autumn graves
sounds like radios left on
late, in empty rooms.
Here’s a magpie perched
on the war memorial,
its uniform smart.
When the wind hugs you
with just so cold a caress
you know winter’s here.
The geometry
of frost-bound cross, fallen slabs:
all over, all over.
Page(s) 21
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