for John Sewell
The moor’s leanness swathed in scarves of wet
where low clouds cling to hillsides
and crumble to drizzling
Sky is heavy, light unreliable,
and grass, cold and full
A shanty-town-shamble of outbuildings,
corrugated sheets, asbestos sheds, horse-boxes,
lean-tos, rusting dumps of tractors,
discarded tyres, liquorice in the damp –
this is the farm, flat and mean, cleaved out of granites
The quag at the gate’s mouth betrays the cows’ impatience
where they nudge to milking
but today, pressed down by mist, they squat dolmenlike,
their Hereford-red a sandstone druidic circle
summoning up some ancient power,
calling a sun that has not been seen for days
Or stand, hangdog, by the millstone wall,
eyes glazed, away, glad for a break from flies,
donating their flanks to the sadness of wet
and the erosion of will
Only the spider’s web is preciously graced
and the lichens suddenly, smugly fat
like weeping sores
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem