The Ofi Press Magazine

The Old Cowshed

We took the stones away, one be one.

Heavy stones they were but we loaded them on the truck

which had backed carefully up the boreen

and then sat there cold and quiet as you like.

Machines do not have souls.

They do not have sinews.

They do not shift their weight, toss their heads at flies,

or breath vapour in the cold air.

The work was hard and we would be rid of these stones.

What? Did you think, we would store them?

We had no use for them, I tell you.

Was something lost? I don’t know.

I hear the wind moving up the fields,

strained through the high trees that still stand over there

behind where the hay shed used to be.

But there is no wind and the trees do not move.

Perhaps time moves like the wind.

And the generations of people cross this land like the air travelling.

We have taken away the places,

dismantled them stone by stone.

Here, take this fork and come and help me.

If we don’t lift that hay today,

the weather will close tomorrow

and we might as well leave it then.

--

Jim Conwell lives and works in London, England. With an original background in Fine Art, he has worked in the field of mental health for the past 25 years and four years ago, began to write poetry.