Across The Tamar Poem by Laura Harrison McBride

A grey cloud, low-slung, the land's cape
this morning sitting lightly on the shoulders
of Dartmoor. Removed, now,
thin sun peeking down the valley
between two moor's hills. A modern painting. Free
and easy. Greens, verdigris, canary yellow
of rape fields shiningin the distance and framed
foreground, with the two sycamores that define home,
the birds' nesty hedgerows,
the old stones falling, leached by
filaments of plants reaching down around.
Hawthorne, gentle white flowers hiding
deadly spines. Wild campion, Pepto pink
flowers on hairy stems. Withering headless
jonquil stalks. Bare paths
from badgers clumbering over,
burrowing in, helping to loose the stones. And
up again gazing toward the far distance,
not so far. Six miles only, across the
Tamar river and valley, to ancient
sites. Hut circles, ancient proof
of man living, rough-hewn.
Between, scallops of color.


Vibrant, glowing in the evening sky. Hinting
at sun tomorrow, baring blue behind
grey like wool batting, floating hither,
breathing puffs of white.
Trees close in, gathered in...small woods,
remaining after centuries of depredations
to make small houses on a small island. Pillows,
pillows of trees softening landforms harrowed in
search of sustenance for man. Cows. Sheep. Forms
on land, lowing, cows, or sheeps' rough
coughy bark in the wilderness so close to home. Close
to dinner, enclosure from fox, badger, man, moon,
winds, rain. Moving slowly, a stereopticon
of their own making in a landscape made by time.

A fish, I am, swimming in a slightly
different, almost parallel stream. One
that holds wonders, but only if one
stops cookingthinkingwashingwritingdoing
long enough to be here with it all. Now.
Forever? Who knows?
Not I.