Monday 11 January 2016

Finding You

Seven miles out of light,

underneath the scrub,

the dinted moss, the scuffed path hill scars,

weighted ways where Saxon kings

acquiesced to history.

Here on a hot day, you almost feel

the ground sigh,

giving in like a theatre seat

to what must happen next.

In such a place I will find you

just when the weather breaks

to see you stand in grace

where ranged armies laboured

for hope,

and where the cracked back of this ridge

offered up its help

not for faith but for geology

and the indifferent earth broke

against argumentative rock.

Here where countless atoms dance

the picture of you is clear,

marked out against an opening sky

like the sudden image an arbitrary point

gives up on the horizon 

if you only stand and stare.