The Sentimentalists
‘Cast not your shadow on home, on heath,
on blackest nights that oft’ repeat.’
‘Not on sweat, on straw, on bellow,
Nor on bleat, blade and meadow.’
Through the wind which cut the old
the bodies bore their journeys home.
Brown wool caps held tight in hands
Of single men with-out plans.
I sat and listened, while all was said,
about what’s wrong and who was dead.
Those from whom I heard the gist
I named the sentimentalists
‘These young are surely quick enough,
they’re off out, no thought of us.’
‘No use blaming kids of farmers,
the bigger fools are us, their fathers.’
And never here and never more.
those sometimes-thoughts I sometimes-ignore.,
glass in hand, raising passioned fist,
‘Those were our days’ - the sentimentalists.