The day we left my mother's house
the winds began to roar;
the willows gave out such a groan
I never heard before;
the hedgerows fell to cursing;
rain blattered at the thorn,
the day we left my mother's house
never to return.
Wind cuffed us roughly sidelong
as across The Fens we slid;
yet clouds shone at horizon's edge
beyond dark sky's pan lid;
the trees flung down bare branches;
the lorries flexed and shook;
it cowed the meek and fearful
but we traveled with the luck.
And when we got to Vicky's house,
a ghost came in the door.
Such a solid spectral shape
I never saw before.
A bowl flew topsy-turvy like,
into the sink fell in;
yet Brendan wouldn't have it but
it must have been the wind.
We long-shanked through the Cambridge streets
to buy a bottle o'wine,
for Sis was cooking dinner
and we'd hardly got the time.
Old Doris blew off Joey's hat,
returning Vera's Way;
and that was that, and, fair enough,
a storm must have her day.
But here's the moral of the tale;
and so its journey ends;
for though you fare through elements
yet you must count your friends.
A blackbird on a tree at dusk
sings out in February:
and there you see a traveler
stilled by a tongue set free.
