Early
Risen dawn-early to get about the
jobs that must be done
The ghost-light pale and thin
An echoing emptiness and ice-coldness
about the place
Mocking contrast to the night
before
Of fire-lit warmth and
conviviality
The crisp hard silence of
morning
Every small sound resounds and
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 of cold metal brush
and pan
Tar-blackened pokers and tongs
The clang and scrape of the battered
ash bucket
Its scratched and dirty shovel
at attention to do its duty
To shift the 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
Their creamy grain and hard-twisted
knots
Backed by the soft-lichened
bark
Of once-glorious greenwood trees
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
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