gather round my mother’s bed –
Bess from Abergavenny would leap any fence
for the company of cows; Fred would let himself

out of the stable and lift his headcollar off the peg;
Rory stomped into the kitchen one evening
and devoured a loaf of oven-warm bread.

Only yesterday she and her sisters
were in the trap on the way to school
with the pony that yearned to race the train.

He galloped the long bog road
from Ballymoe and not even her father,
holding the reins, could slow him.

Now Sunday morning, she’s with her brother
in the haggard pitching hay from a rick;
before the church bell rings in the village

the cattle must be fed. They build the load,
tie it with ropes and heel up the shafts
to back in the Clydesdale by the bridle.

At first she frets about steering Jack
as he pulls the cart, swaying up the narrow lane
and through the gateway,

But horses have more gumption
than any of us, she says.
She loosens the reins, gives him his head.

Today's poem is from Jane Clarke's third book-length collection, A Change in the Air (Bloodaxe, 2023)