Withernwick, Winter 1947
they dug a path down Church Lane
with walls that , to my child’s eye
seemed to rear up sheer and cold
as though reaching for the sky
at the extremes of my memory
not much else is really clear
but some how in my mind
it remains a significant year
horses died , two great Shires
up to their shoulders in snow
just yards away from stacked hay
yet yards too far for them to go;
they stood shoulder to shoulder,
great sad eyes opened wide to stare
as if into distant worlds well beyond
the ken of any villager gathered there.
in sadness, yet in celebration
of a hard winter now broken.
these poor dead horses
a small reminder, a token
of winter’s depth of power,
and soon to come a spring
with blossoms to burst to flower.
and we half forgot lanes blocked
by snow piled hedge top high
and every single step taken an ache
in a cold leg and straining thigh.
and those dead shire horses
long gone to the knackers’ yard
still drift back in memories
of that winter, long, deep and hard.
I’d stood holding mam’s hand
and I remember that I cried
maybe at the shock at seeing
those two horses had died
they come back to me in dreams
still across those many years
and even now at time I shed
some silent and sad tears
so may years ago
and my life has moved on
I’m the last of my generation
all the others are gone
nobody remebers those shires
and very few want to hear
about January 1947 and
that devastatngly hard year
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