Member Poem

I'm thinking of Father, my stubborn father,
the farmhouse parlour, my mother,
gray hair knotted tight, rice-paper Bible,

goats outside, clattering hooves, they've climbed
to the top of the unfinished barn, they stand aloof,
watching, watching, while down below,

distempered walls, a hot night when oaks wilt;
my Father, wrapping sating ribbons round
and round and my mother weeping.

My father's the village hero for finding a tiny body
hidden beneath the foundations. They don't stop
to wonder why the wood turns, the ribbon unravels.