A hayfield slopes to a boundary stream
whose turns are marked relentlessly
by ash and alder shaggy set.
Beyond is a glimpse of mare and foal,
both heads to wind, slow, unalarmed,
low-cropping, lazily;
but the stallion, reaching,
wind in his tail,
black-habited, tosses his head.
So sudden he gallops to me,
and I’ll know him.
Spread hooves plunge wide in the muddy bank;
a raking glance from his eye as he wrenches him
back to his own.
Through the black-dragged trees
are quiet-cut fields, sure-pastured peace
on the knees of the dreaming hills.
But I, I lean on the fence-post,
weak, ache-hearted,
to fret in my draining fingers
the clinging goosegrass,
seeing its sweethearts raging in thorns;
a dog-rose flung in a minor key,
its vibrant, bursting, yellow heart
impaled
on the cold barbed wire;
the wanton hop’s a drunken sprawl
across the white-stained lap of Queen Anne’s lace;
The clack of an ordered husbandry
deep takes the afterglow
as throbbing ridges, beans on beans,
lean upwards to the sky.
Light from the farm looks out.
Yet the path runs down through the hay
to a bridge, to a choice and over
the bridge, the bound
and beyond and beyond
to my dear, oh my love,
though my home burn behind.
All that I see is a tormenting pain;
heavy-hung clover heads speak to me fiercely
of honey, sweet honey,
sweet wild honey.
The eyes of the farm are watching close.
A pigeon flails from a feathered tree -
they mate for life, do pigeons.
But the path runs down through the hay
to a kissing gate,
to a kissing and kissing, my dear, oh my love,
and I’m missing you so
and the wind’s in your tail
and I mustn’t light down on the path through the hay
and you mustn’t come down to drink.
(June,
1971 or 72)
