The Tinkers

That summer, walking in Connemara
There was no rain. The road
Stretched white and lonely.
Hedges were thick with fuschia,
Hills and the distance vaporous blue.
No sound of tyre — hardly a footfall;
Only a donkey braying.

Beside a treeless lough
We came on tinkers.
No caravans, no piebald horses,
Benders of willow
And patched canvas for their home.
Snippings of curly tin
Glittered in the grass
With other gypsy litter. The fire
Smoked straight and acrid
In the windless air. They watched
As we drew near, not surly
But unsmiling — all except the girl.
Fourteen or less perhaps, her hair
Framing her young brown cheeks
Like a brown shawl, her dress,
Tattered as fallen leaves,
Showing her bare brown knees,
Her eyes as brown as conkers;
So young, — so brown — so lovely
Not camera–shy, eager to have a print
By post to the next village.

It was the summer war began.
She could be dead by now;
At best, kippered by gypsy smoke
And Irish weather to a leathery old age,
Unsexed before her time.