So Much Distance

His sky a double-base cloudscape

playing rain;

wet channels cut in clay strike him:

                       how important a water tank,

echoes of that red wheel barrow.

He rolls hay-bale spirals,

tends horse-hair scrub

wild flowers arching hillside,

no razor wire for rain to run off. 

His voice, unbroken by fences

is dismantled by distance. words clatter,

familiar stones piling in pockets.

The phones are down.

It will soon be Christmas.