Photograph in my Wallet
BY HUGH MCMILLAN

I heard rural life described
as a comfort on the radio.
Epidemics or not, the land
reclothes, smiles sappily again,
but if anything reminds me
that we are not of the land
it is this photograph of two
girls staring at the Shinnel,
moving to stand on tippytoe
to peer over the parapet
of the weather beaten bridge.
So I know it is
a melancholy time
when the trees are bare
of leaves and the wind flows
through the rattling world
of what’s left, and I know
rivers still move towards
the sea, clouds stream
like flags but unmistakably
something has gone,
like innocence or more,
a rare time of kindness
that won’t return.