Six months on, they came

never would it be the same

but still they came

greater and stronger than before.

They did not file like Owen’s cattle

but stampeded past them and their shit

a fertile ground for all of it.

Working like ants, downwards

and onward to their baptism.

A short-lived blessing in these pressing times.

And now the burning season through the heather

the weather holding but brooding and befitting.

In ones and twos and more the procession reaches out

and reaches, a turning point.

Pants and grunts and curses, smiles and laughter

some walk, some stop and some canter

but for all the banter (as is befitting)

one voice is heard, by a tearful ear,

“Alex brought me here.”