SOLITARY
for Hannah Hauxwell, 1st August 2008
I must seem a lonely figure
Stood here by the reservoir
Talking to Barry, and Mostafa
Smiling into the camera
If there’s a funny old person
In years to come, a ghost...
Walking up and down here
It’ll be me
* * *
The dry stone walls, and fields
are made slippery by the fog
Miss. Hauxwell lives here
in Low Birk Hatt –
just Hannah, her cattle, and dog
Since the days of her great-grandfather,
this place has been her family’s home
but now, she’s the last of her line
on ten pounds a month
on eighty acres
alone.
She can go ten days, sometimes
without seeing another soul.
* * *
In hospital,
Everyone was very kind to me
I was very happy there
I went a stranger,
I knew no-one
But when I came back,
I’d one or two friends.
I took it rather badly,
but I gradually got used to
the same old way again.
But it seemed very quiet...
there was no-one to talk to.
* * *
She drags one of her ‘little beasts’
up the icy, slushy track
then she leaves it with another farmer,
and walks the two miles back
‘All the best, goodnight!’
The market is no place
for a maiden lady.
‘I’ve had a bit of a fight, yes.’
The price of the beast
will determine the contents
of this cardboard box –
perched on a wall, two miles away
her food for the month
Butter, cheese, eggs
tea, sugar, lard, margarine
and one tin of spam
Then down to the stream,
to the field where the cattle graze
to get water
* * *
One gets a bit tired –
the old bones protest sometimes
and one’s hands,
they’re not as nimble
as they used to be
It’s a two sided thing
one would be more comfortable,
away from the house
Yet one’s attached to the place, and the animals
There’s a battle inside me,
That’s what I mean by the...
Liking the cattle so much
and the place
they form chains
that sometimes I wish weren’t there,
but that’s how it is.
I sometimes think they’re like my little family,
and sometimes, rather like children
especially the little ones –
because you bring them up from babies
As long as I can,
I think the old house and me
will stay together.
* * *
With the rest of the locals,
Hannah is invited up
for a festival, at the big house
with a big woman,
blowing a hunting horn
Inside. And when the music starts,
the woman taps a spoon
to the beat. While the others
pair off, and dance,
Hannah sits at the side,
watching, smiling
and tapping her foot
ever so slightly.
* * *
Marriage, that’s a thing
one can’t just choose to do –
I think there’s all
the difference in the world
between a good marriage,
and being on one’s own.
But one can’t go into a shop,
and say ‘I want a husband,’
It’s in other hands.
I read an article...
I think someone very like me
mentioned this question
to her clergyman.
‘Leave the matter with the lord!’
He said. And she replied:
‘That’s all very well, but up to now
the Lord’s made badly out!’
I think that’s...
I’ll leave it at that.
* * *
One dreads the winters,
I dread this one
It isn’t living, during winter
In summer, I live –
but in winter, I exist.
Ridiculous, really.
I put the brake on
and keep it on –
it’s the only way
And it’s amazing what a cow drinks –
There’s an old saying,
That you never miss the water till the well runs dry
And you don’t know how much the cattle drink
till you have it to carry.
* * *
When she goes into town,
she’s a fish out of water
A stranger in a strange land
An innocent abroad
She’s been ten years in the wilderness,
Waiting for her promised land
At home, she has to hang her food,
from the ceiling, in plastic bags
* * *
We’ve always had rats,
I’m sorry to say
One time or another
There was one a while ago
I met at the foot of the stairs -
I don’t know which was the most frightened,
It or me.
But fortunately, it went the other way
No, I hate...
They’re horrible things
I don’t like them
* * *
Our time goes on,
We all get older
That’s one thing...
Nothing can be altered
We all get older.
* * *
I didn’t think I would reach sixty
or, supposing that I did
that I would be as happy as I am
and with the people in my life,
that I have.
Like Edith Piaf:
No regrets
None at all.
* * *
A time will come...
Perhaps pretty near
But it is a proper, big upheaval
Emotionally, physically, mentally.
It’s just as if my world was falling to pieces.
Everything I’ve known,
and sure of
security, everything...
I don’t know how I’ll leave here
or how I’ll feel after I have left
I don’t know,
It’s my world
I don’t know.
* * *
And it’s lovely.
The moonlight on the water,
I think that’s one of the loveliest things
I’ve stood and watched, many a time
even when I was sometimes tired
and in winter time, which I don’t like...
the winter. But no, it’s marvellous.
I’m very lucky to live in such a lovely place.
* * *
I’ve always found solace, comfort,
with the water. Even, as I’ve said
When times weren’t so good
I’d come down to here,
to what I call, ‘my beloved Mississippi’
and Hunderbeck
And I am happier...
through that iron gate
through here, than in my own fields
To me, there’s nowhere like it
and never will be
And whatever I am,
Wherever I am
This is me.
This is my life.
If there’s a funny old person
In years to come, a ghost...
* * *
It’s not a road for dawdling,
Goodbye.
