Over the Dead Flatness of the Fens

Like columns of mist

in some temple to a vanished god,

the late cloud-stacks mass over a June

reduced to the sickly greens of the Norfolk broads;

and, above the steam-soiled mess

where earthworms grovel, where lumpish toads

set up the resistances of grace,

where badgers undermine the tarred road,

I watch the canvas of that underpainted sky

through a jellied glass of vermouth

while the gravestone crops up

and an oily wind steels itself to the south.

There certain winged creatures

from a century misplaced on shelves

take the day down with a moaning chant

known to themselves.