A man walks the black soil of a reaped field.
He pauses to kneel and parse the earth
for old coins or unearthed aluminium.
He is twenty-two. He is fifty-eight. He’s not
a man but a child with a dog. He’s my boss.
He’s a gamekeeper, he’s a bailiff at my door.
Three buzzards form an ellipsis in the sky,
then the scene changes. There’s snow on the ground.
Stars in the damp night. I can see his breath.
The man is my father, and he walks the perimeter
of hedgerow like a sentry, halting occasionally
to scrape a hole in the hoarfrost with the heel
of his steel capped boot. I never see what he buries.
I’ve never seen his face. He’s outlived his failures
or he hasn’t. He casts no shadow in the moonlight.
