Hello Ann,
          This is a very nice piece. Iliked the atmosphere and the tight control of language. Only two things bothered me slightly. Bob has already mentioned the missing preposition in the first stanza. I wondered if you could use `awaits´ and place it after `patiently´ but that would still upset the rhythm a bit. My other problem was in section 2 where the molten steel from the first stanza is carried over into the second where it `Sets hard´. I´m bothered first by making two sentences of this and I don´t get the point of the steel setting in their veins. Of course, it´s metaphorical, and I guess it suggests the tiredness in the limbs of the steel workers but I wonder if the sense has to travel a bit too far. What about putting a comma after `hedge´ and then `sets in the muscles of boys and `men´?



Best wishes,   Mike



--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---

Have just discovered 'Cesare Pavese' and am much taken with the stillness of 
his poems. They have the kind of light reflected in them that cannot be 
duplicated in Northern climates and if tried it mutates into something quite 
different in style, I have tried it with this new sub and wonder if it works  
and/or proves the theory.....Ann 



Returning from Market

In the street
a huge sky
waits patiently
the coming heat.

In the field
behind tall hedges
boys and men
gaze into the soft silence.

They breath in 
the ripe 
scent of harvest, 
and wait.

They wait 
for the jubilant
laughter of women.
Who return

sure footed, graceful
in their glowing colours,
smelling of summer,
of home.

    II

At the works
molten steel 
devours silence,
sky and hedge.

Sets hard 
in veins
of  boys and men.
So that later 

in the club
both will chose 
not to speak
of empty kitchens

and the fancy 
shopping trip 
to France.
Feign indifference

to the big
blue bus.
To the sound 
of air brakes

and women
chattering like starlings
returned 
from distant lands.

Alighting, most will go
straight home
to two days 
washing up.

Others bolder may
venture to the bar
?Get?s an ?alf love.?
Scattering parcels 

and cut price fags.
Nothing?s said,
but a sense
of settling closes
 
as men and boys 
square shoulders,
leave for houses  
become homes again.

Ann Stockton