#176 Kevin Brophy 'At home in themselves'

#176 ‘At home in themselves’

When the wind runs thin in the afternoon

and the sun drifts to a seeming stillness

in the blueness

girls come bouncing a basketball

and knock on the door

to ask if they can use the court at school.

They’re calmer than I’ve seen them before,

at home in themselves,

one wearing her jacket on her head,

all of them striding across the sand,

heads bowed into a conversation

that could go all day

until they sit, stiff limbed, big hipped,

grey-haired, scarred with knowledge,

children and grand children round them,

and find themselves the sharp-eyed elders

by tomorrow.