Tiny Toad Hole cottage,
rough-rubbed apricot, warm rose
and washed vermilion;
inside cool, crisp and clean,
the only room bride-white, still,
shy of the new so regular
irregularity -
scrubbed table; wooden chairs;
sampler, rag rug, bible; the
earthenware so
carefully haphazard.
Sanitised, thin, underwater light
slips through the stone-flagged
larder,
plays upon the stiff preserves,
the shallow pannikins,
ranged uneasy on the lime-washed
brick.
The eel-catcher has slipped away,
down the long stream;
the flat, five-fingered spears,
net hoops, the tools of his night-times,
all here;
but an absence of oil-dark smoke,
of guttering tallow stains;
of early morning darkness webbing
the mind;
no sudden crumbling of peat,
burning the shadows;
no crusted kettle shaking out soft
drifts of steam;
no greasy hat caught like time on
the rusty nail;
no smell of damp or warmth of
hearth,
no running panes behind spored
curtains tired;
no womb-shaped hollow in the
feather bed,
no mounded wife with linen shift,
her hair strained back in pig-tailed sleep;
no baby in the bleak wood box;
no rushlight fretting at the wall;
no opening door with slipping form
and bearded breath, ‘They run,
they run...’
A gleam of watery sun;
clear, surprised light breaks
upon the minds of voyagers in tiny
Toad Hole cottage,
folk museum.
Nothing to come in, but the
going...for that you pay.
(April,
1988)
* A former eel-catcher’s home, now a folk-museum for Broadland.
* A former eel-catcher’s home, now a folk-museum for Broadland.
