I sigh up straight

from heaving rocks on yonder cart

to trudge old Jess

- that stubborn mule -

downstream

to stem the floods down Morpeth way

- again -

now no beavers gnaw and fell up there

like when I was a bairn.[1]

Since his nibs, Sir William, ordered that dell cleared

rain fast drains off them hills.

Last autumn time

the flood took down that wall

by Peter’s field -

down below the Gallow’s Hill.

I lost a sow

and piglets in the drench.

But Nathan lost a foot last month.

Up Greenleighton

quarrying for lime.

He’d turned - at the foreman’s shout

that Sir William was come on his vast steed.

He braced his burden

- best to bend and make to bow

to tug his dirty forelocks down

but lost his slippery hold on health.

The stone tore through his britches and his boot.

Everyman’s hazard

- but poor man’s dread.

Unable to put vittles on the table.

Says he’d rather have met his maker.

One less mouth for Beth to feed,

he says.

His third, and only bairn

already wears them boots

that Beth re-cobbled with gut twine.

Yesternight I watched Nathan sit

in their earthy shack-

back against t’other side of hope.

His soft faced bairn

already carries a man’s rough hands

from carting chips for dry stone walls

- despite his petal life.

I poked my tunic pocket with my three left fingers

to pull saved crusts.

But pride twisted Nathan away.

Nodding his bairn to slink off to scavenge shrooms.

Trudging towards my for evening servitude

I turn towards Sir William’s pile

of pomp and pleasure

I fold my cap

and kick off sods and scrape cracked boots

and bend to bow

low through the cold pantry door.

As I step into Martha’s realm

my skin takes in the light and warmth

that’s deeper than the vast hearth’s heat

that tends to many unmet needs.

She glances up, and twists a nod

towards the cellar door

her eyebrows raising a slight sighing smile

towards peelings wrapped for Nathan’s bairn.

My lips twitch thanks,

as I secrete the bait beneath my damp shirt.

But, as if recalled to dominance

she turns and barks at undone jobs.

Spying the empty scuttle Jack canna lift

since tripping on his nib’s small pooch

while carrying bed pan hot coals.

Jack - the kitchen hand - now sits stove-side

cradling his new-burned arm

and hunched o’er his unearned shame.

He’ll mend, they say, but never use that limb.

Willingly I bend to bear the weight of work he canna do.

His wince of thanks makes taut my bleating heart

as I squat by him, waiting my next heaving shift.

I am woken from my hearth-side nap

by a cold draught as my mates arrive.

And weary smiles pass twixt us by the hearth

now Martha’s gone til dawn.

Waiting for yelled summons

we start to yawn.

But rude awakening jumps us up

to heave the drunken guests up steep

The ladders to attic lairs creak

as we deposit blind drunks into bed -

oft pissing shit upon our humble clothes.

Or upchucking vitals we would never taste

Do I hate the wobbling farting gents

as I bow and grab their britches from behind ?

And strain to bear the weight of heavy greed

and roll their corpulence onto the cots?

Do I hate his nibs who brings such monsters here

to shoot as fun and game all wild things?

Who banished beavers from our pleasant land

and floods the lives downstream without a care?

I’m heaving here so late in my brother's stead

Our Peter slipped on piss-drenched rungs and dropped his load -

a vast drunk gent, tumbled off his back.

But deep snores bellowed from his happy sleep

My brother left him, fallen but asleep.

But his knee twist stole his working time.

We’re keeping Mam, to spare him the worst of heaves.

Sober or drunk, such men don’t see your face

Clambering down the ladder again

I look around to check all’s quiet in the house.

His nib’s left, dead drunk upon his throne.

Cap back on, I tiptoe out to rest before the dawn.