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poetry tREnD
House
We formed the foundation trenches
in harmony with the golden section.
They were six foot deep and given
a basal layer of hardcore containing
coloured glass from a demolished church.
Before concreting we placed a steel box
containing a family bible, photographs and
a recording of us singing ‘Adeste Fideles’
one family Xmas. Also unwittingly buried,
the foremen’s pen and a one pound coin.
The strips were filled on a June day
of big clouds and a north-easterly wind.
Wild roses rambled over the raw plot.
The brick walls rose through summer
and internal spaces gradually attained
their future character, became an
outside and an inside. In the cavity
a bunch of keys was lost below the foam.
Floors were laid in September, screed to
the kitchen topped with terracotta tiles.
Within the screed, the body of a Holly Blue
that had wafted in as cement was drying.
Glazing gave the house eyes, doors opened its soul
and the loft prepared itself for a largely
secret life which included a forgotten chisel.
The word ‘Kevin’ was scrawled on a purlin.
In that first year we gradually came to know
the way the light moved through the house,
the curious language of sounds from doors,
floors and the surrounding hawthorns and beech.
Christopher North
in pamphlet collection The Topiary of Passchendaele, 2018, Smith|Doorstop Books,
ISBN 978-1-9121961-1-1
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