I'm a scarecrow, a warlock,
a heathen fellow. I'm a crooked
old bird, I'm a frog in a ditch.
I'm a hopeless, itinerant drover
of all those who battle with
warlocks and phantoms and scarecrows and pagans.
I lead them astray on harsh moors
and wet clay, where wind
is a hound and sound is the bound-
ary lonesome and lissom and
ground is the sky and moon
is the queen of a kingdom that's dense
as an apple and pence is
the purseful and need is the curse
on the silence
that breeds in the reeds,
in the fields, in the seas, in the flocks,
in the shocks of the dawn
light that's cold as the hoarfrost
that melts into dew on
the brown lips of autumn;
that you see with your ear
and hear with your eye, that
you breathe in the still ice that lies
in the depths of a black tarn
that breaks underground
into cold mountain streams
that fall
into light,
into dream,
into sight,
into
song.
From Migrants All (watershedBooks, 1999)
