Marginal
for Michael Brown
And let us not dispraise the quiet man
who on a hundred acres sets back ten
for voles to tunnel in, finches to congregate,
for beasts too slender for the eye to see
to populate, flit, crawl in at their whim.
Some narrow path where small heath
butterflies proliferate, where upright parsley
salts the hedge and trefoil spills its eggy trim,
where grasses dip against the sky, moths skim
and meadow cats’ tails brush the sun.
Such will his neighbours call The Lucky One.
His heart will travel lightly and his line live long.
Hay
Good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.
i Perennial rye grass
She loves me. She loves me not.
Alternate truth. Young love is pain.
We lay together in the late June heat.
All flesh was grass—and cast in flame.
ii Sweet vernal grass
Sweet vernal grass in the linen-press.
Bright day on boards and bonnet-threads.
Across the lawn the gardener’s barrow squeaks.
He flings you over in the sunlight’s mesh.
iii Cock’s-foot
Hens in the yard. Dawn silvering.
Fork-print. The scurrying of mice.
Fleece on the swaying threads of wire.
Split frequencies. Pre-listening.
iv Yorkshire fog
Air, velvet on the lattermath. Spikelets of mist.
July condensing on the meadow’s pane.
Slight whispers drifting; morning’s chill.
A scent of hares and cattle-breath.
v Quaking grass
Roadside. Breezes and larks.
Would I could hear them clearly once
those thousand tiny tympanums
rattling as ten-ton trailers pass.
vi Sheep’s-fescue
The close, continuous rasp of grazing:
teeth teeth teeth teeth…
Pin-cushion anthill. Crumbled path.
Dry dung. A curlew’s whistling laugh.
vii Meadow cat’s-tail
Native or immigrant, Hurd’s grass or Timothy,
it sways across the plains of history
in long sneeze-loaded pollen-swabs.
Fuel for a horse-drawn century.
viii Common bent
I dreamt golf-courses, brownfields, healing green:
cloud-headed seed-bright panicles,
sun hatching down between the trees.
Hoof-prints. The tongues of grazing beasts.