First Impressions

The wreck of a ship, scaffolding poles
spiking the air like broken mastheads,
a spaceship, crash landed, up to its neck
in the mud and sand, a scrap yard,
a demolition job. I trudge past the builders'
unfinished sculpture of half bricks
and breeze blocks, pallets and planks.
A dumper truck steams in the drizzle,
its engine cooling, cement mixers gaze
at the sky, their mouths open in silent Os,
the day's last builder pushes a barrow of pipes
across the site like a refugee with his last
valuables. It's almost winter, a few leaves
cling to the trees, and the lights of the old
farmhouse glow in the dusk, becalmed,
out of its depth. There's the smell of timber
and petrol, the year's first snow on the breeze.

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