Autobiography

This is a trues story, the facts have only been altered to protect my memory. And from my brief sojourn in Afghanistan I came away with both a love of the country and its people, and a deep seated belief that it would be folly for any other nation to become involved with its affairs.

A vivid childhood memory. My father was a coal miner who'd had a hard life, and along the way he missed out on expressing emotions.

This was the first poem that came to me, twenty seven years ago, while I was living in a Benedictine community. It is partly autobiographical (Romeo was an actual rooster), though set in a much earlier time - before Henry VIII did his worst.