A lesson in frugality

for Roger Jones

Walked into the orchard,
rusted hinges squealing on the gate.
Behind the gooseberry bushes,
Roger's bandaged grafts thrust
from thin, wounded trunks;
home from Loughgall,

he'd been busy with his knife.
He collected honey in the hives
while I searched hawthorn hedges
for eggs crusted with spots of shit
from hens which brainlessly refused
to use the nesting boxes in the coop.

Meanwhile, his canny father nosed around,
base clone of Milton's Mammon,
eventually found a rusted screw,
placed it in the old tobacco tin
high on a shelf in the dusty shed,
because one day 'we'll follow crows for it'.

URL: www.mourne.org/summer.htm