Four Poems

THE HAWTHORN IN TRENT VALE

After fifty years, the hawthorn hedge
  That ran through the new estate
Still divides the garden ends, resists
  With wounds to wrist and elbow every move
To fell it or constrain. This ghost
  From a farm now gone, remains to haunt
And prick the sleep of gardeners dreaming ill
  Of the one unaccommodating dendrophil
Who has tenderly let his portion swell into tree entire,
  Green fire and blossom fed
From the darkness under bed and masonry.

THE HOARD

I had a cousin - no blood relation -
who was a cat burglar: at evening
setting out for his vocation, he wore pumps
...