HORIZONS
From this house on its hill the sea appears,
through a gap in the trees two fields away,
like a wall – grey, green, blue: the horizon
straighter than any true line in nature.
A spider perhaps two millimetres long
has spun a web in the outside corner
of a window frame. It catches flies twice,
thrice its size daily. Our granddaughter
and I monitor it before breakfast.
The bullocks see us and, curious like
all young creatures, trot over. Jostling
slightly, they lift their heads above the wall.
We can smell their sweet, grassy breaths, look
into their large chocolatey pupils, see
the pristine nap of their hides, count the flies
clustered round their tear ducts.
A south westerly is billowing the rain
like wispy smoke across the pastoral fields
and shimmying the woods of tall trees
in their finery like underwater weeds.
The sodden wide sandy beaches out of sight
beyond the shallow gap in the trees
have witnessed immemorial shipwrecks.
As the bullocks will, the web has gone.
She is too young to think of the past as past.
Spider and flies and the web’s almost straight lines
will be etched like dry points pristinely.
Ian Craine
December 28, 2016Such rich imagery here. You are a fine chronicler of the natural world, David.
Sarah
December 28, 2016As always, evocative and because we were actually there too, very real. I love the reference to ‘underwater weeds’ which immediately brought to mind a scene in one of my fave films (sadly not The Third Man!) but Night of the Hunter and poor Shelley Winters dead and bound in the river….
Mary Clark
December 29, 2016“She is too young to think of the past as past.” That’s a wondrous time. But the poem also tells us these moments will pass, and it’s just a great juxtaposition of two time frames, complete with immemorial shipwrecks and vanished bullocks and spiderwebs. I was envious of this place, too; can you wish me a home by the sea?
Nilanjana Bose
January 7, 2017Always a pleasure to visit here. Particularly enjoyed this one. The imagery is luminous and engaging.
A very happy 2017 to you.