Cliff James
children working
They sit, hunched, staring at their books,
Faces half-yellowed by the newly risen sun.
Sometimes they look towards me and feign
Frowns on unlined foreheads, scowls
Designed to scare away doubt, that pretend
Certain brilliance with the final
Snap of remembering fingers.
Outside, in Winter, the sun washes pine-ends
Of unfinished houses and throws twisted shadows
From a landed gull, who cold foots over
The frost-greyed grass. It invades
The morning, valley haze and shrouds
The mountain's charactered beauty, hides
The scoops and dips and folds, clusters
Copses, scars and spaces, reduces all
To basic shape and shade. Smoke
Breaks angrily from older chimneys,
And black gulls fly past the sun as I sit
And watch the working children struggle
To convince me that I have taught.
Page(s) 42
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