At Windmill Farm House (1782-2020) (A Folk Tale In A Period Of Pestilence) Poem by Stephen Purcell

Answerable to no-one
We are marooned;
Unvisitable and closed.
We are contained.

Eight generations have
Crossed this ground from gate to door,
Once busy and intense
With pail and grain and flour.

There is no labouring now;
(No sweating under sacks)
But there is wood to chop
And grass to tend.

' Oh Sara my sweeting, take heed of the news.'
Thus Willy the miller sat airing his views:
'The Frenchmen are coming from over the sea,
Come quick while we've time, come sit on my knee.'

The woman glanced sideways, ignored Willy's knee,
' A Frenchman might please me a sight more than thee!
For here lies the cradle but no baban for sure
And we now fast married a twelve month or more.'

Now Willy he rose and he paced up and down,
The words from his wife had deepened his frown:
' I love thee and labour to make greater store.'
'‘‘Tis loving talk only, ' said Sara, 'no more.'

And such are the echoes
In this house by the sea.
In a perfect spring
We are set apart,
Stalked by disease,
And thinking upon the ghosts
Of those who sat just here;
Who climbed the outflung stair
And dreamed as we do now.

Sara she sat on her stool at the grate,
'See, Willy the marks in the hearth beam I make
If it's some witch-curse forbids me a son,
Then the spell that I carve will make her be gone.'

My fingers search the inglenook
And there, dead centre of the beam,
A trivet ring, rusted and seized,
For a pot hung in the kitchen's heart.

And so we sit and conjure
Wraiths -changing by the years,
Who sat as we do now
In fear of plague or war or ruin.

And the numbers of the recent dead
Become a multitude and we allow
A moment's silent calculation and meet,
Head on, our own impermanence.

Willy took hold on his wife's fair hand and held it to his heart,
'I would to God my love' he said, 'that we should never part;
And so a baban we must make, before the year is over
A child that will be born of love my wife and dearest lover.'

And as we grieve the absence
Of those we made as lovers
There is security in these stones
Holding firm against the gales -
But no wall or fence
Is proof against
The invisible.

The rumours of warriors from over the sea
Faded as quickly as frost on the lea
And soon Willy saw in his wife's smiling eyes
That they would be blessed with a new infant's cries.

'Say, Sara' said Willy, 'oh, when will it be?
For tis all that we lack in our prosperity! '
But Sara she glanced at the signs on the beam:
'Beware what I told thee; tis yet but a dream.'

And so seems our life now;
Like a dream that we cannot distil
Into what can be known
And mastered.
Fears that do not yet
Set our hearts beating faster but
Which stalk around the edge of knowing
Like ghosts upon the outflung stair.

Among the scents of garden roses
There is respite. In lengthening days
Of sunshine and sea breeze
There is a promise. In the smell of grass
And salt-tanged air there is relief.


Stephen Purcell