Short Measure for the Gabriel Hound
Each time I read a cloud’s dark countenance
or watch two crows stitch out a warning
in the clear blue air, I can’t forget
the Bradwell miners, bound for home
without a lamp to guide them, night as heavy
as the earth they’d toiled beneath all day.
They heard the long grass stir. They stood
dead still. A beam, sharp as a skinning knife
shone from the moon down to the hill
and carved the huge shape of a hound; a dog so quick
they’d barely taken flight before they heard it bay
and felt its harsh breath at their heels. They ran
full speed with burning lungs until the dawn,
until the daylight overtook them and they went,
grim-faced, down to the mine
to meet their certain fate. Remember them
as you lie in bed, when the empty house
has fallen still, and you stare through open curtains
at a starless sky, imagine it’s a dog’s
black flank that passes you, bound
for somewhere else tonight.
- Helen Mort.