Furrows and Barrows
Long labours of attention dig down, heap up,
leaving furrows and barrows,
these lasting features of ideal landscapes,
and familiar legacies of centuries’ belief:
…….monuments to precepts,
…….principles that we can touch.
From a train heading north,
watch treelines where cathedral spires emerge,
cities on hills, well-weathered but still standing,
just as a quiet witness watches ancient rubrics emerge
unbidden from deep memory to treat with wild experience,
and the sudden achievement of order in an unexpected place.
Rory Tanner is a general-purpose writer based in eastern Ontario (Canada). He’s published a handful of essays on the poetry and politics of early modern England, and regularly reviews volumes for the Journal of Canadian Poetry. He received a PhD in English Literature from the University of Ottawa a few years ago, but has been working as a technical writer pretty much ever since.
