Auto spy
The view’s too like a painting to be real,
faint farms patronising the valley floor,
clouds loafing in the hammock of the sky.
Were the greens greener and the trees fuller,
sheep meekly gathered on the riverbend,
the water slack and varnished with delight,
it might be a Constable floating by,
perhaps full of mysterious essences.
But the humpbacked bridge’s lapidary weight
rises and falls abruptly as I pass.
Even the sharp bends that pitch and roll me by,
the fieldend lanes that swivel me ever up
in suspense across glimpses of a shining lake,
and the hill’s lights, sun braided, rising,
are movement in name only as time stops.
Then there is a real movement in the trees -
a horseman rides out of the sun, splintering
the light, weaving the ground with dreamlike skill.
White horse and dark rider leap the bushes
bent against the sky, into the sky and gone.
Two plumes of breath alone hang in the air,
a signature of love. And a set of vanished reins.
In the rear view mirror driving by I see
my baby son asleep in the back of the car -
I know it’s him on horseback twenty years on.
Page(s) 127
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