The old drainage trench had once been a stream, long

before the huts were knocked down and the overlords

began building their houses of stone. Rubble and foul

silts formed the banks, crawling with vermin. But there

in my chest some dark fire flamed in quiet rage as I

walked the track seeking the lost voice, the voice of that

freed watery flow, the pebbles beneath the streaming tongue.

Oh I knew so well those smooth stones, the child’s treasure

of comforting form and the way, when dried, a single

drop of tear or rain could make the colour blossom

once more the found recollection of its home – this

child’s treasure and the child was me and the treasure

was mine, and mine own child this very morning I

discovered, kneeling smeared on the rotting bank

playing with shards of broken pots that knew only

shades of grey no matter how deep and how streaming

these tears.

Before Trate

Nameless Fent

(MT, UK Trade, p.435)