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Keith Jebb

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and the sun

hits the grille-badge to a
blue spangle.  Late late

hammer the frame
through the keys

the places stuck
to the skin

(Frankwell, Pontesbury
the Long Mynd)

storm riding in
from the west

sliding over Corndon
like a bread-bin’s lid

across the stones
where the witch Mitchell

milked the enchanted heifer
into a sieve, draining

the common weal with her
franchised hands.  Now

just a ring of kags, wind
warming out of the west

and wet;  the faint milk-spot
of an old sun.

 

Mitchell’s Fold is a small stone circle on Stapeley Hill, north of Corndon Hill on the Welsh/English  border. The legend is that anybody could take a single container to the white cow, which would give milk until it was full.  Mitchell’s trick with the sieve is the first recorded act of privatisation in the British Isles. The cow ran away into Wales.
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