towards his promised furrows

on the hill, a wake of pollen

drifting to our bank, next season’s tares.

II

For days we would rehearse

each patriarchal dictum:

Lazarus, the Pharaoh, Solomon

and David and Goliath rolled

magnificently, like loads of hay

too big for our small lanes,

or faltered on a rut –

‘Your side of the house, I believe,

hardly rule by the Book at all.’

His brain was a whitewashed kitchen

hung with texts, swept tidy

as the body o’ the kirk.

III

Then sometimes when the rosary was dragging

mournfully on in the kitchen

we would hear his step round the gable

though not until after the litany

would the knock come to the door

and the casual whistle strike up

on the doorstep. ‘A right-looking night,’

he might say, ‘I was dandering by

and says I, I might as well call.’

But now I stand behind him

in the dark yard, in the moan of prayers.

He puts a hand in a pocket

or taps a little tune with the blackthorn

shyly, as if he were party to

lovemaking or a stranger’s weeping.

Should I slip away, I wonder,

or go up and touch his shoulder

and talk about the weather

or the price of grass-seed?

The Tollund Man

I

Some day I will go to Aarhus

To see his peat-brown head,

The mild pods of his eyelids,

His pointed skin cap.

In the flat country nearby

Where they dug him out,

His last gruel of winter seeds

Caked in his stomach,

Naked except for

The cap, noose and girdle,

I will stand a long time.

Bridegroom to the goddess,

She tightened her torc on him

And opened her fen,

Those dark juices working

Him to a saint’s kept body,

Trove of the turfcutters’

Honeycombed workings.

Now his stained face

Reposes at Aarhus.

II

I could risk blasphemy,

Consecrate the cauldron bog

Our holy ground and pray

Him to make germinate

The scattered, ambushed

Flesh of labourers,

Stockinged corpses

Laid out in the farmyards,

Tell-tale skin and teeth

Flecking the sleepers

Of four young brothers, trailed

For miles along the lines.

III

Something of his sad freedom

As he rode the tumbril

Should come to me, driving,

Saying the names

Tollund, Grauballe, Nebelgard,

Watching the pointing hands

Of country people,

Not knowing their tongue.

Out there in Jutland

In the old man-killing parishes

I will feel lost,

Unhappy and at home.

Wedding Day

I am afraid.

Sound has stopped in the day

And the images reel over

And over. Why all those tears,

The wild grief on his face

Outside the taxi? The sap

Of mourning rises

In our waving guests.

You sing behind the tall cake

Like a deserted bride

Who persists, demented,

And goes through the ritual.

When I went to the Gents

There was a skewered heart

And a legend of love. Let me

Sleep on your breast to the airport.

Westering

in California