At Brill on the Hill (with the windmill)
the sky ominous
a purple bruise threatened to knock
us off the bikes
Nixy’s little mill tenuous
perched alone,
six hundred feet above sea level
no trees to buffer the wind
more than three centuries
of lovebirds
non conformists
showing off calve strength
as they worked their way towards
a pint at the The Pheasant Inn.
We were more tenuous.
Healthy children
our eyes wide with the cold
wild landscape
hungry for our future
the warm taste of flesh.
Your red and white leathers
seemed bolder
than the great sky
bigger than the bleak landscape
and grassed over clay pits
when you took my hand
for the first time
pulled me down
out of the wind.
No going back.
The windmill kept turning
the Pheasant
churning
hearty ploughmen’s
while we rode off
into adulthood.
Red and white bravado may be gone
with the purple clouds
and cracked leathers
of our childhood
but hunger remains.
Don’t let age blind you.
Under my crepe paper skin
lies a beating heart
blood moving bravely
through veins and arteries
Pull me down
out of the wind
like you used to.
Magdalena Ball runs The Compulsive Reader. She is the author of the novel Black Cow, Sleep Before Evening, the poetry books Repulsion Thrust and Quark Soup, a nonfiction book The Art of Assessment, and, in collaboration with Carolyn Howard-Johnson, Deeper Into the Pond, Blooming Red, Cherished Pulse, She Wore Emerald Then, and Imagining the Future. She also runs a radio show, The Compulsive Reader Talks. Find out more about Magdalena and grab your free copy of her Quark Soup at http://www.magdalenaball.com
