Moving a Sculpture

UNITY, by Allan Mackenzie

For AM

Farley Farm
was close to drugged,
slow with November’s
perpetual damp;

my view was short-taken,
by dozens of time-kicked
bricks in the long-revived
fat hip barn:

Having spent the morning
stacking dusty blocks
I was all for piling-up
everything more artfully.

A gardener appeared,
arm-locked in the steering
of a wheelbarrow of plants,
now lifted, redundant.

We required his own way
of up-rooting things,
and the piece was loaded
under his soft advice.

There, laid in two parts,
the sculpture divided,
over scatter cushions,
to soften the journey.

A grave length remained
of worm-turned turf,
where the statue had stood
we left a patch of earth.