Self-Portrait as an Old Schoolhouse

Restless two-hundred-year-old village elder,
a ragged playground of words, or is it weeds –
fragments of chant to slaps of skipping rope.

Sash windows, shoothered open, once shed ample
light through dreich lessons, but pupils who tried
to view their future needed legs as long as ladders.

All feelings, ceilings rather, are twice as high
with pitted beams, capable supports. A half-roof
peeled off. The moon looks down into a ruinously

untidy classroom. Wooden lids keep telling stories –
a cluster of desks carved with vocabulary sparkier
than in books on the plank, or library shelf.

Damp and foggy. My northern weather within.
Rodents and birds visit. And grey, nithering children –
rascals, angels, plodders, even ‘weaker brethren’.

Listening for whispers, the scart of pencils.
Sniffing. Soap and ink are variants of tenderness.
English was more painstaking than lace-making.

The Lord’s Prayer hung on; hymns flowed like a burn.
My big double doors, now painted duck-egg blue
just in case – of what? It is not quite known.

Alma mater. Those who came here never learnt that term.
I was no worse, no better, than a stone apron.

Anne Ryland’s third collection is Unruled Journal (Valley Press). Autumnologist was shortlisted for The Forward Best First Collection Prize. New work has appeared in Long Poem Magazine, Magma, Empty House (US) and Crannóg. She has also published articles and reviews. anneryland.co.uk