JOHN ORMOND

Where Home Was

Home was where the glacier long ago

Gouged out the valley; where here

And there the valley's sides cohered

At bridges that had no grace.

They looked the work of men whose blunt

Belief was that a builder's guess,

If good, was better than a long

And bungled calculation.

They clamped together the two halves

Of our village, latchets of smooth

Sandstone coupling the hills.

We lived by one of them, a dingy

Ochre hasp over the branch railway.

Nearby the sidings stretched in smells

Of new pit-props leaking gold glue.

Of smoke and wild chives.

On Sundays when no trains ran

Overnight rain would rust the rails

Except, of course, under the bridges.

We put brown pennies on the silver

Sheltered lines for flattening.

Under our bridge we searched a box

Marked Private. In it were oily

Rags, a lantern, an oil-can.

All down the valley the bridges vaulted

The track, mortised and clasped

Good grazing fields to one where the land

Widened and farms straddled the way.

These small frustrated tunnels

Minutely muffled long strands

Of percussive trucks that clanked

In iron staccato under them.

We'd sit on parapets, briefly bandaged

By smoke. The trains went by to town.

We waved our caps to people we'd never

Know. Now it's always Sunday. Weeds

Speed down the line. The bridges

Stand there yet, joists over a green

Nothing. Easier to let them stand

Than ever to pull them down.