How Hill,
where death-stained reeds reach up
from sticky pools,
fasten pale fears
around the feet of windmills,
shattered, shamed,
nailed upon the broken sky;
where in each others stricken arms
tall trees lie dead,
so many stunned piètas;
How Hill,
where storm-wrenched wildness
still
is trenched with tears;
but where, coming like a shaken
Magdalene
to mourn within the garden,
to pity wounds, anoint the griefs
with ointments of dull sorrow,
I find a messenger:
a stone-eyed frog croaks,
solitary,
urgent with the reassurance of
renewal,
spawning hope..
(Easter
Sunday, 1988)
*A nature reserve and field centre
on the Norfolk Broads.
