Anonymous, Barrow-in-Furness
He starts early, wheels jagging channels
in the loam, churns his way back and forth,
north to south, in a whirlwind of gulls
and hummingbird angels darting and seeking,
wings skinny with frost.
No one is watching.
He is whistling as dawn unwinds across the fields,
hauling on the wheel to spare worm and beetle,
easing the Fergie gently into the air
above an exodus of spiders.
A jostle of cows arrives at the field edge,
breath hanging in drifts of bramble.
The first rays of sun burnish the bonnet;
he smiles, checks his watch and heads for home
down Salthouse Lane
past rumbling mills bleaching and pulping,
spilling veils of steam to billow on the tide
to Piel Island and beyond
where Stan is on his boat quietly
casting for herring.
It’s a good place to retire, the coast.
He has been here before but no one really
remembers. Here, they just get on.
No one wants to know his name;
no one cares.
Fat sacks of seed rustle in the barn,
manure steams in the chill air,
horses snort and stamp.
There’s a Norton in the milking shed
and a raft of clouds tethered in the orchard.
He keeps to himself; he has the whole earth and sky.
People are busy eating and drinking, buying and selling,
planting and building.
When no one is watching, who knows what goes on…
he’s not one to judge.
Jane Lovell lives in Rugby. Her poems have been published in a range of journals including Agenda, Poetry Wales and Mslexia. She runs the Warwickshire Stanza for the Poetry Society.