The Fens

Slowly the sun moves towards the world’s edge

In early summer, before the grain hardens,

When the earth stares into space, expectant.

Herons take up their posts on their river;

Only their eyes move, hypnotizing fish.

Swifts and swallows tangle with the sky.

The opiate sun fades, shedding red petals.

Distant spires disappear into night.

The earth rocks like an open boat,

Constellations foaming over.

Tiny lights perforate the distance.

Will the sea someday return here,

The old foe bent on revenge?


The river’s a steel sword snug in scabbard.

Sparrows chip at morning silence,

Chiselling electric blue.

You can almost hear excited roots pushing

And barley thickening to burst.

Straight roads skip and run on ahead.

Skylarks strive upwards and release

With parachute exhilaration.

Church spires conduct hidden lightnings.

Seductive space opens up to be loved.


August sunset over the flat lands:

Coral reefs of fires fanfare the sky.

White buildings shine like icebergs.

Dervish weathervanes swivel and whoop.

Thunder avalanches: shards and splinters

Explode from the shattered pane.


Autumn strings up glistening webs

From hedge to hedge, and telepathic mist

Creeps through trees and people.

Primeval pungency of damp vegetation...

Fish-bubbles break the river’s still.

A clock ticks in an empty house.

Fleets of churches sail across fenlands,

And a solitary walker throws back his head,

Swallowing rain like sloe gin.


Rimy grass crunches like glass-splinters.

Winter chill wrings out the bladder.

Dead moles hang in a line on a fence,

Thirty-seven little peat-black corpses.


Spring looses bright serpents in the air.

No time now, no limits.

Only iridescence .A kingfisher’s wing.