An Opening

For everything, for nothing
chestnuts on the lane
leaves at the door

for the thinning trees
for ditches
for watery fields

for the firewood, the fire
for the hob, the kettle
for the cold

for the rain and its skies
for the fox, the vixen
for the porch light

the postman's van
for the furious winds
chimney music

for ash, for hazel
for heron, for swan
for standing in the lane

no-one, nowhere
and so lightened
nothing's left

everything begun

 

Music for Viols

(Tobias Hume's Good Againe)

Good again
this night, this late
to hear that tune and fall
again, the slow dark drag,
texture
of thickly branched trees
swaying above water,
of sound moving
from the farthest pit
to pour down.
God and the devil
must play the viol.
The door of the world
swings open
on Hume's excited figure.
After sadness, hunger,
royal blindness
to the great shame of this land
and those that do not help me
after a bellyful of snails
and the sniping of lutenists
good again to stand
with the night
in Jordi's hands
and listen
and walk in
as far as the tune will go.

 

Adventuring

How they possess us,
the bullish islands square against the horizon,

the rocks stark in the videotheque,
these

riffs of information
where unanswered questions

strew the paths … Mists
of an anorak summer,

fuchsia and scones, our elbows resting
on the squared oilcloth;

we sit in the car and interpret the rain,
we patrol our country

of hoods and maps, of meagre knowledge
flitting in the hedgerows.

Dried crab on the palm, this snail
adventuring on the grass path,

that pure print, as if what we wanted
was to enter so absolutely

we can never be unpeeled
and whatever returns

that must still be us
drifting across the water,

foostering in the branches
or making ready in a cloud,

the three of us
with our endless stuff

setting off again
on the long road to a small place.

 

The Entry

We did our best we cut the grass we moved the drunks
we listened to you
we planted flowerbeds put up signs
Welcome
300 yew trees
we painted the railings we renovated the chip shop
we put a footpath from the slipway to the ice house
we read the report we painted lobbied objected
we met the developer we read the contract
we buried the wires we landscaped the park
we placed new lights on the street
        the salt wind destroys the flowers
the footpath is broken
from the barracks to the school
the lamps go on and go off again
five times around the holy well
anticlockwise you go
land of the yews and dangerous corners
we took down the railings we met the owner
he refused we pointed out we approached the senator
        the lakes in the back country glitter
next year we will tackle the other side
we cut down the cypresses
        the salt wind destroys the shrubs
we did our best we shifted the lumber
we undid the damage we erected an information panel
we unwrapped the clouds we loosened the weirs
you are here
we returned the salmon we put up stone walls
we built a footpath to the well
and in the distance the mountains
the longest the most beautiful
you are here
beside the handball alley
the salt wind we sang
where the winter scattered its brochures
that gravel is not ours we reported it before
we stayed up late we attached
the chip shop the church the abandoned cottage
we drank everything they had
we spoke to the moon lounging above the weir
we erected the sign we preserved the ruin
we asked the populace to refrain
from diving off the sluice gates
all of us went out in search of litter
through the glittering back country
you are here
you have been standing forever
where the slipway meets the ocean
where the postcards wait in the heritage centre
where every night we would gather
to listen to the sea neglect the forms
the number the details the plans
where the moon hangs its trophies
in the swaying back country