Hedgelaying

Instead of a fence, we laid a hedge:
not shrubbery you’d find in magazines,
but a breathing barrier of rods and pleachers
brought together to keep the cows in.

The old metal we piled by the road
for scrap, our wages for the day
in lengths of pipe and corrugated steel
and gas and beer and butter sandwiches.

The saplings left alone for years
now were disturbed, skinny trunks sawn
nearly through, and bent to the mound
so the sapwood grows around the wound.

We drove the fieldside stakes in with axe-flats
and hands unused to this kind of work,
then wove the green willow through
to keep it sturdy while the trees grow
together strong and stockproof.

The spring will be its final test,
when men in Mules drive the cattle in
to graze and live until market day and pray
that none will escape to the road.

The songbirds and squirrels will make their home
in it, as will the rats after we clear the cowshed,
but nothing’s perfect, and everywhere has rats,
and there are terriers for that.

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