Spirit of the Cloutie Tree

Mother of all stravaigers, where they pass through
she stays, in an oily haze of exhaust
from untaxed bangers, leaky caravans –
clearing up, salvaging, gleaning middens:
a ribbon, a bandage, a torn pair of y-fronts.
All the same to her. Any shred will do.
Bent double over the peat brown burn
bare legs mottled, arms like roasted hams,
arse like a road roller, skirt hitched high,
she slaps and scrubs and wrings out rags,
spiking the air with whisky breath, tart sweat
and blue beratings of those who’ve moved on.
She ties clean clouts to her family tree –
they bleach in the sun, drip in the rain,
tussle in the wind, starch in the frost –
guards keepsakes of all her drifted bairns
on the offchance that in some idle moment
one or two have a mind to come back home.