Diaspora

Eating Onions

Eating pickled onions

by the jar

shut behind doors

that only open inwards.

Strange how children become

accustomed to

strangers at home,

whispered intimacies,

an extra button

undone

on mother’s blouse.

Father never brought

work home.

Nights on the tiles

hid his infidelities.

Six and half a dozen

I’m eating onions

they bring tears to my eyes.

Millington Pastures (East Yorkshire)

Abandoning our car in the woods

we head off up through the Pastures,

as the low winter sun catches one slope

we pull our fleeced envelope

tight against Natures extremes.

Kestrels, like tethered kites, hover.

Casting their beady eye over

steep, grassy valley sides

where still, cowering prey hide

not daring to break cover.

Shaggy, Highland cattle graze,

as the narrow valley winds its way

between high, banked walls

where echoing calls of crows 

break the shortening day.

Water bursts into life from below,

bubbles its way to the nearest hollow

where sheep come down to drink

and ramblers, like us, pause to think

and reflect before we go.