John Ormond 'My Dusty Kinsfolk'

JOHN ORMOND

My Dusty Kinsfolk

My dusty kinsfolk in the hill

Screwed up in elm, when you were dead

We tucked you though your hands were still

In the best blanket from your bed

As though you dozed and might in stirring

Push off some light shroud you were wearing.

We did it against double cold,

Cold of your deaths and our own.

We placed you where a vein of coal

Can still be seen when graves are open.

The Dunvant seam spreads fingers in

The churchyard under Penybryn.

And so you lie, my fellow villagers,

In ones and twos and families

Dead behind Ebenezer. Jamjars

Carry flowers for you, but the trees

Put down their roots to you as surely as

Your breath was not, and was, and was.

Early and lately dead, each one

Of you haunts me. Continue

To tenant the air where I walk in the sun

Beyond the shadow of yew.

I speak these words to you, my kin

And friends, in requiem and celebration.