The strangest of times: a skein of geese
crossing the bedroom window, heading west
and no body of water within seven miles.
I am playing the cottage pagan - lying late
amongst the Sunday morning bells.
Heaven is a cloudless sky
in late September, harvest past,
leaves on the turn.
At first I think I hear the binder,
wheels beating, turning at the headrow,
but the fields are bare.
Such a beating, a clattering.
More geese searching for a lake
in this land of furrows? Or
the rector in his Wolsely
come to seek me out?
And then my window darkens
into the shape of wings, jagged wings ñ
Weston mill uprooted, reeling across the fields?
Certainly a hurricane of sorts
in the throat of this beast
squatting low over the beeches,
dabbling its feet in leaves, roaring
in a black updraft of rooks.
An aeroplane, fearful in the untried air ñ
nothing like the rising bird
it mocks, This is a man,
dressed in wire and canvas,
climbing out of the long grass.
This is a godless man ascending,
out of the dust, towards the light.
