Hedging (on Exmoor during World War Two)

My mother held a billhook like a man

knew her way around the hedges, chose her stem

laid it uphill to fill a gap

Her dress was always the same belted overall, boots –

hair netted, rigid as stone

in its simplicity

My job, to pull away the trimmings

drag them unwilling to a patch decided

pile them awkward and whipping back

into a heap for burning

The heap grew, I tired of it

Intent up in the hedge

my mother split and bent

the smaller limbs

I knelt on the ground, ripped the match across the rough

lit paper and straw. A flame. Smoke rose

in a pungent curl, the ash sticks caught

Up the hedge, one hand round a limb, my mother’s wave

indicated the littered ground beneath

The wind changed, I ran chased by smoke

                                                                              Jane Beeson