Foundations

By: Roger Hansford

                               Forensic evidence: the churned earth;

                               the physical decline north - south; the

                               narrow moss bank (in situ); a yew-branch

                               ribcage still moulding the missing heart

                               of a house.

                               The machines had left.

                               no archaeologist, I turned the

                               two shattered stones with words,

                               filling this dank gap with memories

                               of the man in the lane:

                               his gingerbread house, with

                               diamond chimneys bricked askew,

                               white window-lattice you could almost lick;

                               his two-room life, where chickens

                               scratched at the wooden door, and

                               rabbits played between beanpoles.

                               In a New Forest nursing home,

                               the man in the lane reminisced,

                               almost tasted the plums:

                               ninety summers at Vine Cottage.

                               I see them now,

                               vivid as the Chinese-dragon hedge

                               still snaking beside my childhood.

This poem appeared in South 37: A Poetry Magazine from the Southern Counties, April 2008.  Totton: Hobbs the Printers Ltd.  ISSN 0959-1133.