Amongst the lichened gravestones,
his hobby to employ,
limps a man more ghost than bone;
the strange hobbledehoy.

At every plot he tends
the flowers at the heads
of the beds of his only friends,
the unforgotten dead.

His face betrays no pleasure,
no sorrow, pain, nor joy,
it is as tight as ashen leather
on the hobbledehoy.

I notice one small plot
at which he lingers more
so that the bones are not forgot
or easy to ignore.

We hit him in the back
when we were throwing stones;
no-one ran, no-one laughed.
He did not flinch or moan.