The sun was spinning a golden thread
On a loom of sky above Butterfly Hill,
When we fed our kites to the boisterous wind,
Terry and Janet, Priscilla and me,
In the long long grass that tickled our knees –
Or blew on a dandelion clock till time
Went off in a huff and the last plumed seed
Had led us a dance through the billowing flowers,
Hijacked a heather-scented breeze,
And was lost for good in the sky’s blue dust.
Terry and Janet, Priscilla and me,
We played till our shadows put on stilts
And the soft pink faraway lights came on
In the cabins of the clouds – but whose
Was the voice that called us away, away?
Old woman at the cottage door,
In gathering dusk beneath the hill,
Why do you stand so still, so still?
Oh never, never ask her name,
As one by one, she calls her children home.
© Anthony Watts