michael oliver (13-4-1948 / swansea)

The metal black stove
Cooled by nights decay
Forever dads first task
This cottage day reanaiscance
He rakes away yesterday
Now dust as detritus
Quickens the new hearth
Momentum for the wheel

I remembered the room
With its sloping floor
The table the chairs
In place watching listening
By lifes narrative tide
Positioned scraped moved wove
The present silly child
Growing then naming chaos

Where is my mum
Not here in memory
Handing me a plate
Walking through the gate
A flash of material
A face calling me
To order my sense
In making this formality

I laid and listened
My mind quite inert
daylight is about again
The day is finite
The green papered wall
Stared at thought on
From here there now
Alive in my Eden