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Dan Bennett

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Beck's Field

“ghost of the BIG city
(he said)
has changed you”

up above the town    (orange and green)
wander with the dog
to a bone-wood bench
(in this high blank heat we are all
bleached kindling
for the sun we are all
trapped in a crater
the dust of the world)            the dog
strains at the lead         sniffing out
marked territory   &   the sandstone
of a world where (even)
itinerant strangers call his name

                             &   out
out amongst it      (the prospect)
the market town               in the foreground
bird shadows on a brown glass river
(the curve
defines the limits)              brick buildings
jut amongst the tops of trees
gold of buttercups
scattered amongst grass
look down on the green dome
of the bandstand
church spire fangs
bared amongst the trees
                                               &
                    something leaps
               sending a quiver
                                through the leaves

                    a hammer on
        a distant post
        sounds (here)
                                like a languid bell
chiming a siesta
   or plague warning
out across
                    the still town

I would spend an hour
& read the names
of past lovers scratched
   into petrified wood

   Appeals without answer   a
chime across the spires    a tranquility
                 that in twenty four hours
                                will drive me
                                                   out

 

Page(s) 138-139

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