Early

Early

Risen dawn-early to get about the jobs that must be done

Pale thin ghost-light, ice-coldness

An echoing emptiness mocking the night before

Of fire-lit warmth and conviviality

In the sharp crisp-hard silence of morning

Each sound resounds, rings hollow

The chores of clearing up and cleaning out

The grey grate of soot and cold embers

A grim dismembered mess of cinders

The chill cold of metal brush and pan

Tar-blackened pokers and tongs

The clang and scrape of the battered ash bucket

Scratched and dirty shovel at attention to do duty

To shift clinkered residues

And make way for the laying of new materials

For a future conflagration

Grimy newsprint and candle-ends

Under criss-crossed kindling

Cradling the careful stook of splintered logs

Creamy grain, hard-twisted knots

Backed by soft-lichened bark

Of once-glorious greenwoods

Rough scabbed surfaces scratching fingers

And scuffing dirty knuckles

The colourless morning, bleak and bleached

Leaching into harsher daylight

An involuntary shiver at the deadness of things

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2017