Roy Kloof Went Riding by Sydney Clouts

Near a field overflowing
with barley I ride,
my mother embroiders
and lives by the sea.
Small money she makes,
with shimmering tones
of a tower on top of a distant hill
and combs of water sharp and still
and sprinkled cherries made
the size of blood.

On Sundays I visit
my father, he greets me
with sombre surprise;
and sometimes, and terribly,
laughs with such pain
that his stubbled morgen
carry the sound from stone to stone
and strike it through my marrowbone.
His second wife restored
his faith in God.

I have a small house
and a gentle child,
a young wife’s care
and a good field;
the season of berries
and vines I love.
But the hill I climb has a heavy tree
that surges with quarrels and darkens me
to a desperate mind that throws
torn light as it grows.