Ruin

[Antcliff]

House or byre?
Not much difference either way.
One space, and if a house,
an airtight door, a much swept floor,
one kippering peat fire.
Everything revolving around the fire,
like a feeble tended monarch,
reborn each evening, a pot for a crown.

Small, some say. So small.
But what room did they need,
with no television, no computer,
no radio, no telephone? No toaster?
No to almost everything
except their feet, a stiff brush,
the well packed kids put away each night
like daily annotated bibles.

But what did they do in the evening?
Tell stories, over and over,
The Boobrie, The Brollochan,
rumours of the Doonies,
the fairies smell of meadowsweet
when dancing in a sudden fog.
Noggle, Nuggle, Water Horses.
Their indoors: so much emptier than ours.
Their outdoors: so much fuller.
What price the delight
of a hobgoblin in the night?
Living in a house-or-byre.