LOWESWATER FELL
Hands and feet up Loweswater Fell:
Heads down to the browning bracken,
Shirts plucked by the scented wind,
Denizen of the grey rocks and cold gills
That runs like Puck, with his laughing eye,
Across the sparse grass.
Hands and feet up Loweswater Fell:
The grasses bend and the sheep
In calm and dumb detachment gaze.
The fox stares fixed
From the fold’s firs
And the high birds shear down the long wind
On taut and wind-filled wings.
Hands and feet up Loweswater Fell:
The silent seething cloud, cold,
Moves, organic, from the north
And the lords of the earth
Retreat down the runnelled track
As the sheep continue mute observation.
FEAST
In the shade of these ancient olive trees,
Transplants from some other time and place,
Old men slur French to their glasses
And women display with pride
The epaulette of unshaven legs.
We eat,
And watching, in a self-supporting circle,
The eye to the left,
We laugh and talk a touch too loud;
Credentials of familiarity.
But pause,
Savour this rare and excellent wine,
Spurned by most and wasted on many.
Look to the few
Who still will relish the rich and the good
And grow strong in quietness.
Let me yet drink deep from this cracked cup
And in the morning
I will dance on the warm lawn
Without points or cap or gown
And with my trousers rolled to my knee!
