Where the Freight Trains Sing
When the purple foxgloves of late May are in their second flush, birdsong is intricate, the sunlight grafts a garden and my clear eyes are rimmed with gold . . . then I will think of you through the fields of June, I will follow you as a shadow and a light to the House of Many Walls. I will pour you a piping mug of hot water, of Red Rose and cream, and leave it steeping on my antique desk. In the corner my dark writing desk from Sadie Ann McMurray’s gathers a yellowing stack of papers, from another time; the tapping through the wall of Chinese Medicine, the clank of summer pipes, air and steel, over the hum of herbs in cupboards, reaching to the ceiling. I write health articles for the newspaper under framed prints of impasto-shadowed gardens; who will sit for me today in this space: a muse of an artist in their garret? Who with crossed arms and double chins will be my next patient? I loo...
