could put the tribe in sight

of a call they’d met before

in their ears, the air ever after was

invisible ink.

Then, hey nonny no,

the poets came; rhyme, metre,

metaphor, there for the taking

for every chancer or upstart crow

in hedgerow, meadow, forest, pool;

shared words, vast same poem

for all to write.

I snap a twig

from a branch as I walk, sense

the nib of it dip and sip, dip

and sip, a first draft of the gift –

anonymous yet – texted from heart

to lips; my hand dropping a wand

into this fluent, glittery stream.

Atlas

Give him strength, crouched on one knee in the dark

with the Earth on his back,

balancing the seven seas,

the oceans, five, kneeling

in ruthless, empty, endless space

for grace

of whale, dolphin, sea-lion, shark, seal, fish, every kind

which swarms the waters. Hero.

Hard, too,

heavy to hold, the mountains;

burn of his neck and arms taking the strain –

Andes, Himalayas, Kilimanjaro –

give him strength, he heaves them high

to harvest rain from skies for streams

and rivers, he holds the rivers,

holds the Amazon, Ganges, Nile, hero, hero.

Hired by no one, heard in a myth only, lonely,

he carries a planet’s weight,

islands and continents,

the billions there, his ears the last to hear

their language, music, gunfire, prayer;

give him strength, strong girth, for elephants,

tigers, snow leopards, polar bears, bees, bats,

the last ounce of a hummingbird.

Broad-backed

in infinite, bleak black,

he bears where Earth is, nowhere,

head bowed, a genuflection to the shouldered dead,

the unborn’s hero, he is love’s lift;

sometimes the moon rolled to his feet, given.

John Barleycorn

Although I knew they’d laid him low,

thrashed him, hung him out to dry,

had tortured him with water and with fire,

then dashed his brains out on a stone,

I saw him in the Seven Stars

and in the Plough.

I saw him in the Crescent Moon

and in the Beehive and the Barley Mow,

my green man, newly-born, alive, John Barleycorn.

I saw him seasonally, at harvest time

in the Wheatsheaf and the Load of Hay.

I saw him, heard his laughter,

in the Star and Garter, in the Fountain, in the Bell,

the Corn Dolly, the Woolpack and the Flowing Spring.

I saw him in the Rising Sun,

the Moon and Sixpence and the Evening Star.

I saw him in the Rose and Crown,

my green man, ancient, barely born, John Barleycorn.

He moved through Britain, bright and dark

like ale in glass. I saw him run across the fields

towards the Gamekeeper, the Poacher and the Blacksmith’s Arms.

He knew the Ram, the Lamb, the Lion and the Swan,

White Hart, Blue Boar, Red Dragon, Fox and Hounds.

I saw him in the Three Goats’ Heads,

the Black Bull and Dun Cow,

Shoulder of Mutton, Griffin, Unicorn,

green man, beer borne, good health, long life, John Barleycorn.

I saw him festively, when people sang