Bare Shouldered

The Loom of Stars*

To journey through the sheen of spring,
the young leaves sprung or springing,
and blossom everywhere a zing, a zest,
a dress undressed, a flesh unfleshed
such tenderness, on boughs instressed,
a space more than we hang on,
looming by, and gone,
as the grey road unwinds, a lazy snake
over and under, cuttings and subways,
a slick track through Stoke...

Nottingham,
on shock-of-the-new islands,
lined with king cones
and temporary plastic barriers
under tyranny of cameras,
tall oil-seed-rape has shot freely,
so many perfect specimens,
swaying in a graceful space,
little yellow-headed galaxies
adding their pastel-mellow yellow,
to the dandelion and daffodil castes,
common crop and weed escapee -
lurid fields of yellow shining along a hill-brow.

In a marshy field further along the ring-road
great white bulrush heads bearding
fluffing away to seed...

There seems no roadside scrub that is not
leaved, catkinned, blossoming,
(hung with sad induviae
or fat, brown, crispy-coated seeds)
pointing, trailing, bushing, pushing,
stretching, tossing, spreading, thickening,
bright and brightening
in splendour of untidiness,
joyous disarray,
each out-shooting and out-shouting,
delighting the eye,
wide and greedy for multiplicity
ravening-in all the offered tenderness,
Titan at the Vernal feast,
Chronos devouring all;
and yet nothing is stirred a whit,
by our beholding.

Weeping-willow woman,
bent over, the wind combing
her long green hair, she,
shushing his sighs,
and smiling as we pass her by -

and through all the
daffodil-islanded interminability,
we are never too tired or jaded
for an ooh! and an aah!
at the loom of a star
on this spring Broadway.

.............................

*From Crewe to Sutton Bridge

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