BRENDON HILL STATION

- part of the former West Somerset Mineral Railway Line

The ghost of the stationmaster is sleeping rough

in the Winding House shell - its arched eyes gape,

the wind surges through him. He could find a roof

and shelter elsewhere, but this ruin clings to his memory.

He stares into the cable tunnel, barred to him now.

Moss and spleenwort linger at the entrance.

He longs to wrap himself in a shroud of darkness,

bury himself in the hillside. He longs for the abyss.

He tries to push through the bars but there's a Jackdaw’s nest

in the Winding House wall and the 'tchack' of babies

pulls him back to daylight. Maybe one will fall

too soon, air surging past its fledgling wings.

He'll watch it hopping among the weeds and grass,

then scoop it up, feed it worms and grubs,  

stroke its puffed neck while parents watch from above.

They won't return to it now, he knows. It's his pet.

But he’ll soon tire of its squawking insistence,

those begging blue eyes. He’ll let it fend for itself,

watch it weaken until he can stare down into the filmy murk

of its eyes, wonder what drove it from the safety of the nest,

the edges of which inner abyss it sought to touch.

Later, he’ll watch the brothers and sisters fall, 

catch air, unless he stuns one down to earth with a stone

to marvel at the easy slip from flight to failure.

Or perhaps it's just the iron bars that keep him 

from oblivion, no matter how many times 

he tries to prise them apart. They are real 

and so is his failure. Earth is an unforgiving bed. 

He buries himself among the piss-stinking grass, 

the piles of dead leaves when autumn comes. He shivers,

rests only in snatches so that daylight is a kind of sleep,

and the rest a nightmare –