TWO WHITE HORSES
without tv or news or clocks
time is measured in white horses
in the field below
the morning brings a new alignment
they are enacting all the prepositions
in front of, behind, next to
and some that only horses know
the stations of the horse
two entangled particles play out
a stately ballet on the clockface field
clouds attracted by a strong force
and repelled by a weak one
cumulusly billowing, melding, reforming
waves from two distant shores
breaking, each, one upon the other
on the next day, they do adverbs of time
before, after, a long time ago
a very very long time ago
and on the last day
they’re performing verbs
galloping, slowing, resting, lying down
leaving the house for the last time
I turn tail, to see a waft of white smoke
that turns into a tail, then two of them
twirling, tick-tocking the seconds
or is it the years
SO THAT’S WHERE I WAS
I rounded the crest
skirting the top
sitting windward on a slope
I made a cairn of myself
and that’s where I was
I picked a way through brambles
deerstepping over thorns
legs souvenired in blood
I stopped
and found myself there
through the spring-frothed wood
green, so green it’s yellow
ivy scaffold on hornbeam
beech and brother beech
I was there
so that’s where I was
THE MIST
the mist came down last night, came in softness
between here and Winter Hill, a drowned world
just spires and treetops jutting out above;
archipelago in Pacific fog
grey but lustrous – has eroded edges
all the gaps are filled with mother of pearl
the middle-willow distance gone over,
lightly stippled with a softening brush
so watercolours run, bleeding into
tump-grassy nearby and all that’s behind
words are becoming detached, corner first
shaking free, the children are leaving home
what used to be a branch is shedding nouns
twig, leaf, acorn, and bark have now all gone
borders dissolved and separation smudged
all of it replaced with a sea of this
the sun comes at last, pooling rosy mist
white whips tilt and float up, slow and stately
a flock of birds drops down, reattaching
returning back to things, the birds are words
