All Ways
the black hatchback blinked
a red triangle as it tipped
over the brink out of sight
down the dim tunnel of the road
side glimpse over a cornered gate
of the valley narrowing still far
below—on the broad back above us now
of the chalk upland we had walked
with cloud banks serried silver, white,
dark where the wind drove a grey
smoke of rain before them over
the flat. Slowly, the words are coming
back: green, light, the clack of crows,
phrases rustle their pathways
through the woods. Slowly, the mounded
plain spreads out south, red firing
flags stiff in the breeze, on its sheer
grass canvas, a giant close-up
of the concrete Horse, scrubbed White
again in June by abseilers.
Bumping along the track to leave,
a cow by fraying hedgerow
in the field suckles her calf.
With hawthorn, clambered blackberry
and next spring’s promise of primrose
in the shaded damp, wherever
I stand or look the land is shaped
by distance and perspective,
re-shaping in turn my thought,
linking memory of joy
to joy: a bridge over loss.
Sunken bridleway down past
the badger haunt, satin grass-
way uphill in the sun, all ways
growing the secret fractal
of language again in me.
