Holiday in Sidmouth 1957

I cannot read that poem
about a rain-glazed wheelbarrow
next to white chickens,
without returning to a field
with geese and a steamed up caravan.

Those xenophobic birds hated me –
hated my black Wellington boots.
The caravan did not want me in its head,
so it misted up its eyes and I was blind
to all that field and gloom-filled sky.

Stuck in the stink of mouldering wood,
I drew stick men on the glass, cave art;
decimation of geese with a bow
and many arrows that lost their potency,
as the pigment ran clear like tears of boredom.

– – – – – – Graham Burchell, 2011 – – – – – –