There must have been children,
pearl buttons, boot buttons,
sturdy hands smoothing the dust
from weir bricks blue as shadows:
I have the smooth, small marbles,
the warm clay balls all swirled
with terracotta
that creep together like ducks in
the sun.
There must have been afternoon
teas on the grass,
the careful china, blue and white,
and a wooden chair
dusted (shy curtsey) for the
vicar:
I have the pointy spoons, thin,
silver, Georgian.
The curtained rooms too dark for
sewing,
there must have been days of
sunlight,
fine stitches set in linen under
skies
woven with swallows:
I have five thimbles, one too big
for a woman,
one just right for a child.
There must have been letters to
lovers, friends,
to family locked from home:
I have the blue-green bottles,
squared and fluted,
fingered the thin rough necks.
There must have been games and
laughter,
long skirts, wing collars:
I have the croquet hoops,
their tap roots dragged with rust,
and clay pipes broken on the warm,
red hearth.
There must have been always a
busy-ness:
I have the shards of slipware,
snaffle bits, the curtain rings of
brass.
There must have been a discipline:
I have a small stone monkey,
black, admonitory,
his paws as still as God over his
mouth.
(July,
1989)
