With all the rain our great provider wished
upon us this long winter,
a brick-lined pit dug umpteen years ago
(I had no inkling it was there), fell in.
More than six foot wide, more than eight foot
down. The shock.
The fear of falling into piss, shit,
bone-eating worms.
My need to fill the wretched thing.
How to bury a year
of crumbling certainties?
Last night North Norfolk’s moon went carnival,
its light so stark, it would have lit
that gap, chasm, abyss,
in the dark –
a hole that might have gone on swallowing
flower beds, deer-molested shrubs
and lawn – if the builder hadn’t traipsed
to and fro, barrow after barrow, tipped in rubble
on a bitter day, to fill it.
Three truckloads he stomped down.
We thought the grass would never grow again.
The unveiled moon was firm:
‘I repeat.
You move on.’
