Repairing a Roof

Up on the shed-roof, clearing off

a felted mass of needles,

twigs and cones dropped by an overhanging

Douglas pine, I find a wound-

four shattered tiles beneath the matted pelt.

I guess it happened long ago

in some forgotten storm when,

goaded by the wind, the tree lashed out

in fury, branches thrashing,

striking anything within its wooden reach.

The wound must be repaired to stop

the rot already showing in the beams below.

I climb out on a crawling board to clean the fracture,

pick out fragments, ease up tiles that,

over years, have bedded down together, tight.

I slide four new ones into place. They are the same

and yet, no matter how I fit them,

they will not lie flat. They grate against the older tiles

their nubs and imperfections fresh and raw.

My work stands out, a livid lump, a scar.

I work till I can do no more. The wound still shows. It’s time

for rain and frost and snow to take their turn.

The tiles will chafe beneath their strokes, and gently groan

on star-lit nights, and bleach to ochre in the sun,

until, at last, they settle and the scar will disappear.

Alistair Scott