A Privy Remembered
A PRIVY REMEMBERED
I remember the privy at the end of the path.
Its roof held together with cobwebs and lath
Twin seated it was, of old splintered wood
Quite why there were two was not understood.
Blistering paint on a handle free door
Crumbling bricks and a bare earthen floor
Neat paper squares on a bent rusty nail
Carefully torn from an old Daily Mail
Wintry days, air pungent and damp.
Heady fumes from a hot Tilly lamp.
Flaking whitewash in our hair,
Unknown creatures scuttling there.
We played hide and seek from this little room,
Chanting loudly in the gloom.
Sunbeams dancing through the gaps,
Then ran shouting, “Coming chaps”
Dark, misty evenings, full of eerie sound
Walking up the dewy path, odd rustlings abound.
Scary moonlit monsters lurking in the trees
My heart beating faster, a trembling at the knees
Relief to reach that room at night, the candles in their jars
Looking upwards to the roof and gazing at the stars.
Time to ponder, time to dream, a haven from outside.
Pure magic, in my memory-this place I used to hide.
Catherine Wilson
written 1979
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