The Scattering

The Scattering
At the beige bungalow
  the apple tree held its white breath—
  petals loosening.
  “It needs a prop,” she said, holding the small trunk to centre
  as blossoms drifted below the clothesline.
  “I told him.”
  “Push the pegs along,” said another.
  For the photo.

There were meant to be seven.
  We became four—
  the red car falling away
  over the heath
  and not returning.

The green peeling off and stopping
  before the rutted track,
  a turn taken twice
  in the wrong place.

Winding on the bumpy track
  to the overlook—
  where the radar station,
  the pylon—
  January, ’45:
  a Lancaster down,
  seven names in the church below.

The bare patch amid the gorse
  where he flew his planes.
  One lost before him—
  still somewhere in the undergrowth,
  still not found.

“I haven’t laughed like this—” she said,
  and bent double with it.
  The two lost cars.

On the hill above the church
  where the gorse blackened
  in the fire last August—
  black branches, stark and twisted,
  the green coming up beneath,
  and the rest in yellow bloom,
  coconut-sweet,
  the wind from the sea
  pressing low,
  bending inland.

An ice-cream scoop—
  his gift to the neighbour—
  that was how it was done:
  one turn each,
  a brief arc of grey
  into last summer’s scorch.

Then what remained
  tipped into the green undergrowth
  below the blackened branches.

A hymn played thinly from a phone.
 He who would valiant be—

Flowers from his garden:
  iris, apple blossom, peony,
  rosemary in bloom.
  We gave them to the same wind.

The rosemary held back.

After: fish and chips,
  and ginger beer.

And at home, the rosemary—
  stripped into East Runton sausages,
  and new potatoes
  into the evening meal,
  green and ordinary,
  entering the body.
_____________________________

Arise ye workers from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We’ll change henceforth the old tradition
And spurn the dust to win the prize.