After the Prize

All Souls day. It should have been more than itself—
the name, the dying year.
I walked up the hill on the thin grey road.
The TB house that was emptied when they died
was vacant still, its windows
stared hollow and indifferent, a bull bellowed
in the haybarn beside it and heifers pulled
at the wet grass. All as it was
on the day before—

The yellow leaves
were quiet against the sky, the orchard
was crusted with rotting fruit,
a white mist poured
through the stubble. All as it was
on the day before—

The fields were chock full
with new stock for over-wintering,
horses swung their long gait
through crowds of snub-legged steers, the ivy
sprawled the stone walls, the air
stiffened towards frost. All as it was
on the day before—

Those lights of camera and chandelier,
those points of light on silver knives, on polished glasses,
those starched cloths, name-cards, tight arrangements
of budded roses, those people, compliments, acclaim—
beat like a tide behind my eyes and like a tide drew back
into a far, thin, line.

Four pigeons fell from an emptying tree,
the dog snuffled after a scent
in the fading brambles, the anti-climax
that had hung around me like depression,
and licked and smoked like air on the cold earth,
ran off into the frost and quickening dusk.