(‘The food that to him now is as
luscious as locusts shall
be to him shortly as bitter as
coloquintida.’ Othello: I iii.)
Walking out
I swung to the rhythm of an old
husbandry,
opened the age-locked store
cupboards of time;
the hips and brambles stirred and
swayed
and brushed my thoughts.
Remember us, they cried; remember.
The cooling still-rooms of the
past appeared
with careful Mistress Alysoun or
Joceline,
sober kirtles, modest eyes,
who set aside the conserves and
the honeyed wine,
the rosemarie and margeraine, the
comfrey;
the cob nuts ripened;
the akermast was thick for swine;
and early frosts had etched the
ghosted strips
of Piers and Hob and Dickon;
teasels caught my legs
and brought wool-gathering
nobodies
to people quiet hedgerows;
the slipping stream ran to the
mill,
but turned no wheel.
Walking home,
facing the fading light,
I saw the drifting, rose-flushed
skirts of dusk
gathered in a smoky hand;
I saw the hedges bruised and
beaten,
raped by gangs with chains,
bleeding white blood;
I saw the thrushes dispossessed,
the weasels waiting;
I saw the barbed wire, plastic
bags,
the nitrates leaching into stagnant
pools;
I saw dead water and I saw no
bread.
I saw three starved crows flying
to the west of night.
(November,
1986)
