Sestina.

You lived high in the crotch of the mountain

in a small square house strongly built of stone

and slate. A tiny glassless window looked to the village.

An alcove, by the hearth kept the tin caddy full of tea

and a smoke blackened kettle, crane-hung over the fire

hummed a clear high note as it boiled water.

You lifted the slab off the well to draw water,

pure spring clear, not the peat grained mountain

stream that danced along the gable wall behind the fire.

In a daily ritual you carefully replaced the stone,

from the chipped enamel bucket filled the kettle for tea,

drew out your shopping bag for the trip to the village.

A high black framed bicycle carried you to the village,

down the steep mud track rutted by rivulets of water

to Creedon's grocery where you bought sugar and tea,

always buying extra for the old men of the mountain.

You left the brown paper parcel behind the black stone

near the half-circular rock and the smouldering fire.

One cold evening when the sky was painted with fire

you finally took one of the terraced houses in the village.

You locked the cottage door, put the key under the stone

and with your few precious things you followed the water

down the stiff, steep slope of the mountain:

your bicycle, hurricane lamp and the battered box of tea.

You spent your evenings in our kitchen drinking tea.

The yellow tubular chairs were pulled close to the fire.

You told stories of bitter hard days on the mountain.

and of the pure east wind, unknown in the village

that skinned the last peaty soil from rock and ran water

back up streams. Your mason husband lived with stone

but now there was no demand for houses of dry stone.

He would sit with you all day, then after tea

He went to Murphy's bar, drank whiskey like water

and died there one night with his chest filled with fire.

You would not allow him to be buried in the village

so we stumbled the coffin back up the mountain.

We needed no water that morning to quench the ashy fire.

You fell across the hearth-stone breaking the cup of tea.

Another coffin left the village,going home to the mountain.

(first published in The Waterford Review)

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