My kin come from labouring stock:
Bricklayers, farmers, potters made good,
Kiln-stokers, Herdsmen. Markers of a path.
I was the first to go out into the world,
To take a different mortarboard in my hand,
Though my life feels the more limited now,
Being borne out of thought. Not for me
The diurnal life: the soil, the seasons,
The sun, the earth. I’ve taken my heirs’
Telluric inheritance, made of myself,
In this realm of words, a straw man,
For going against the grain of things.
My kin knit closer than cross-stitch.
They’re brickwork on a chimney-breast,
A hearthstone lit by filial warmth.
I envy their muddy boots and 4x4s,
Their ruddy-faced Cath Kidson kids.
And far-from-the-madding-crowd ways.
I feel it sharply when our paths collide.
When necessity dictates, we reconcile
With a familiar smile, firm handshake,
Or fumbled embrace. When done,
We part without a backward glance,
Saving face for the brace of grief
Still to come. Blood runs thicker
Than water. It mars the land with love.
We are as salt upon the earth.