Dead still in the middle of the hard, grey country lane;
The padding dog at stand, his clicking claws quite still
beside me
At dusk.
An owl in its silent wheel sank sweet to a tree
And the quiet broke sharp in a thousand rings
And a pigeon clattered, tumble-tattered, flew
And the dischord fell asleep
And the quiet grew.
The dipping lane streamed out, out and the sky, the sky
Held wide its arms,
Its wild and laughing arms.
And the sky was patched and loved
And stretched about with the gentle grey of a pigeon’s
breast,
With the faded blue of a linnet’s egg,
And the elm trees walked in twos and threes by the way,
Tall and black with leafy clumps
As starkly stuck with floor mops crazy shaken out to dry;
And over far
The charcoal-coloured cardboard hills
Were stabbed by rows of needle-pricks and lights peeped
through.
The bats played tag beneath the darkening oak,
Dived through the dragging boughs
And squeaked oh! paradise high for glee.
A grasshopper woke;
Or late to bed he chirped his prayers.
Back high in the east
Among the darker clouds
Some rags of gold flew brave;
Then from the church the clock struck ten
And in a deep blue tear,
Madonna blue,
Shone one bright star, so clean, so clear, so piercing
bright, so small
Amid the depth.
A seagull cried alone.
The wind blew up and in the hedge
The ghostly nettles bowed before the music,
Whispered twice
And danced a stately minuet - and gently kissed.
A delicate moth flew its life along;
Powder-blurred in the shadowed grass
Pale-dreaming yarrows adored with upturned faces;
And bumble-toppled clover heads, molk white, gave benison;
And praise was all
And leapt and sang
And shouted without voice,
Danced
Into the silent source
Without a sound.
But I heard;
For this life in love I ran mad with joy
And laughed in his arms.
A cold wet nose touched my hand;
Up
the hay-whisped path we went home.
(August, 1971)
