Summerlands
Willow man farms
the summerlands, tends
black maul in its bed of clay.
At leaf fall he harvests
young stems by machine.
His father’s billhook rusts unused.
At home his wife dusts the crib
great-grandmother wove
from withies, stripped white
as tight sinews, proud
on her hand when she twined
the pliant wands to shape.
Their willow lines Old Yeo’s banks
where whimbrel-song springs
and water voles burrow
deep in osier-cradled earth.
And there they sleep,
close to the river’s lap and lull.
Jan Harris’s poetry has appeared in Popshot, Envoi, Snakeskin, other literary magazines and numerous anthologies. She lives in Nottinghamshire.