A hardworking man

A hardworking man

Toiling all day on the land

A scythe in his hand

Driving a tractor

Pulling a plough

Building a wall to mark the boundary

A fence to keep out the fox

All the while he would be thinking

About something else

Something bigger.

There was always something grander

To focus his attention

Away from the grind of labour

The ache in his back

The broken fingernails

He would try to hide

From Miss Jane who worked in the Bank

She was a cashier with lovely hands

And counted his cash

With such grace.

He tried not to stare

When she looked down

But it was an effort

There was definitely something about her

That stole his attention away

From counting the balance

Of his weekly allowance.

He pondered his reaction

Whilst ploughing the backfield

Wrote about it when lying fallow

In the hollow

Next to the orchard.

The light dappled through the trees

Casting a ripple of shadows

Across the meadow

He saw all manner of strange

Silhouettes and magical reflections

He liked the look of

And thought it might be a nice place to share

With someone special.

Sometimes when he sat alone

He liked to write things down

He had read Audin and Frost

Eliot was a peach

A delight

He could almost recite ‘The Wasteland’ from memory.

There were moments when he thought

He might have a poetic kind of mind

But then he thought how silly it was

To believe his few scratched thoughts

Were worth the re-telling.

Nobody knew

What he wrote

He kept the book hidden

Wrapped in a cloth

Stuffed into the space under the seat of the tractor

During the day

Under his pillow at night.

Pencil words easily erased

Nothing he was ever too proud of

But the best of his day seemed to find its way

Into the prose

And one of these days he just might

Ask Miss Jane out on a date

Maybe a picnic

In the hollow ground next to the orchard.

Nothing too fancy

Freshly baked bread, cheese and homemade pickle

A few juicy strawberries

From the farmhouse garden

And Elderflower wine.

Perhaps he would read her a poem

From his ragged old journal

And she might even like it.

What a wonderful feeling

That might be

Something grand

Something bigger

Something better

To look forward to.