Northern Latitude

 

Damp, arrhythmic, upon an anorak hood,

soft blown rain gifts a latitude

blurring hell's acre, where dumped kale self-seeds

and formally, from well-farmed scenes, secedes.

 

Galvanic wire, a tautologic fence

––tight, long-drawn, intense––

is stretched for wintered cows

to stop them roaming.

 

In one green field a brace of duck

and an alarming redshank fly right up;

in another, a knackered Volvo, bronze,

shoots the breeze with rooks, and reflects in ponds.

 

Along the shore small gulls en masse

shall undulate yet never pass

up sandeels from a breaking wave

nor smörgåsbord from skerry,

 

till hollowed whelk with battered beer-can lies,

elevated as detritus

caught awhile in some wrecked seiner's

polypropylene mesh.

 

Yet from this high-flung muck we are all gainers,

we'd moralise amiss

upon life's bruck on a stripped-down beach

with less and less of this,

 

but only that squat lump

of blown, unloved aeolianite,

on which may rain, wind, verve & patience suit

to let vetch drill, and clumpy sea pink root.

In Ginkgo Prize Ecopoetry Anthology

ed. Jade Cuttle 2020

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