In the apex of the barn gable an owl’s hole
perches on a stone head, and the head
stares out towards rectory trees
luring the valley between
to this bare, parched socket.
A pub sign, official designation,
rescued from the cellar of the reservoir;
the drowned village that bares its teeth
in the long hot summer.
A face uncomfortably blank like the blank
stare of the water; its wind-carved features,
brow, nose ridge, the deep eye-clefts;
straight mouth mean as a hill-winter.
A head tight to bursting
with indignations, straight-faced
with verticals and horizontals;
a labourer caricatured
by a neighbour fallen on easy times.
Too high in the barn
to be on equal terms with.
The head is brewing its word,
its kettle fired by the face’s
utter sobriety. A Viking
in his barn-ship wrecked
beside the ragged waters of the valley,
or Odin, caught out in trickery
tricking life from drudgery,
worth from existence, words
from the hinge of January.
.
Rivington Village, Horwich, Bolton, Lancashire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivington
