. for public domain
Two faces peering out a window,
of a cottage nestled in a wood,
much quieter than the Admiral Benbow,
no road markers to where it stood.
Beatrix Potter where is your brush?
Why should you leave us in such a great rush?
We've fields aplenty and rabbits galore.
Could you come back and paint just one more?
Or if God has brushes reserved just for you,
to paint His Creation to give us a view,
could you include a rabbit or two?
I know they'd sit still if only for you.
Benbow, I have forggoten many things
But you barking
When the mongoose hunt bagan
Making children excited
Finding the foe of farming man
But you leaping bar high
When I cycle through the gate
Making me feel special
Though I rode pass you straight
But snuggled where I played
Watching with have slept eye
So I was not afraid
I am putting you in perspective
Brother dog,
Animal friend,
Or just another soul
When angels walked with men.
O Benbow I miss the days
The long gone mornings
And you trailing me
Through dense undergrowth
Of ignorance
When I was mesmerized
By light, shadows and trees
O I long for fragrant evenings
And the myrtle rose
Dripping from your nose
Making me long
Making me long
You were here with me still.
Something is happening there now
I know it, I can hear the lane full
Of children's voices, the lowing cow
Tramples on the peanut hull,
But not that, not that common routine
And not the buckets sitting still
On the kottas, nor Lawford in the ravine
And his cart rumbling up the hill
Not the blowing horn of the coming bus
And children running from far away
To reach the schoolhouse through the dust
Before the bus passes them in delay
Something is happening there, I know
I can hear the dogs barking now
And there among them my Benbow
Midst sticks supplied by the wounded bough
The mongoose will not escape today
Melbourne is putting fire in the pingwing patch
And I am here so far away
Now that my hens can lay and hatch
O deep in my blood, Jamaica is calling
Her golden breast foams in the mouth of the sea
And blue her mountains rise in the morning
Deep in her arms I long to be.