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A Straight Line Through a Revolution

Stuart Butler

Monday, April 7th, 2008

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Who was it who thought that 1 piece of string betwixt 2 sticks,
Could measure a line even truer and straighter
If wrapped around 2 steel spikes,
Revolving loose and louche,
As you walk across your allotment plot,
While beneath your muddied boots,
Nestling within the confines of the earth,
Seed and tuber shelter from the cold and wet,
Slowly moving towards their destiny,
A new life, beneath wind blown cloud,
Strange bright stars, sun and seductive moon.
And whoever thought that the diffident man
From the red brick house on the plain main road,
Would sing a delicate light opera as he digs,
With a voice that rings around all the 5 valleys,
And right through the window of my local pub,
Where I collect the weekly vegetable peelings
For the communal allotment compost heap.
And as I sit here, penning these few lines,
Football on the radio on a Sunday afternoon,
Rhubarb crowns dug ready to share,
“In Which We Serve” on the TV,
Clothes stacked ready to iron,
Snow flurries outside the window pane,
Crisis in the City and the Stock Exchange,
1968 revisited in all the newspapers,
Then life does indeed imitate artisanal cultivation:
A straight line through a revolution.

© Stuart Butler

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/a-straight-line-through-a-revolution/