from a train stopped too soon
I see that they’re dumping
live coals outside
the closed brickworks

maybe as usual they’re walking
down the path and away while
it gets ready to cloud up
and rain

only an edge of the farthest
fields is still in sun
so maybe it’s not coals at
all that I see

maybe it’s poppies, maybe
the closed brickworks is
a forest only partially
felled, maybe

it’s sheep walking down
the path, while the shadows from
a fence they pass
toss in gusts

it’s like looking
at an old painting whose
background is always being crossed
by a row of figures

not until it’s all magnified
do you realise that they
are either people going home from
a brickworks

tired soldiers on the march
or sheep running away
from a herd; in the foreground
sits the Madonna

in a matted thicket
of green blackberries