Low little thick-walled stone cottage
on the dwindling, forest encroached old Usk road.
You’d catch it at your eyeline, squat above the hedgerows,
like a cup on its saucer; whitewashed, dim windowed,
slightly sad outer face. Dad’s last home.
His, more than hers, ‘a refuge place.’ After he’d died,
Mum toiled in the garden that got too much;
badgering herself, ‘no, she wasn’t the type to give up.’
Isolation hit hard, she feared the swamping
no-street-light, larch-wood deep country dark;
double locking the front door, when she was in,
nervous, edgy to a panic, when I came visiting.
Heedless of help. Five full years mustered on alone,
fought fears that finally tipped to overwhelm.
