Quitting Time

  The sonnet-portrait of a humble but fulfilled pig-farmer on the point of packing up after a fulfilling day’s work. A poem as uncomplicated as the figure it portrays. The farmer takes a last look before he closes down for the night (kills the light) nodding his approval at the cleanliness of hosed-down chamfered concrete, angled at the edges so that the water does not lie. His eye moves methodically via the cleaned up yard and the tools of his particular trade (pails and farrowing crate) to the iconic cast-iron pump, solid as a a classical relict (immobile as a herm), proud as an ancient boundary post (upstanding elsewhere, in another time). Last looks at the wet shine of the […]