and the road turning itself into the loch, a huge ace

into which everything folds. Here is the evening,

displayed then dropped to drift to the blazon of barley, bracken,

heather. Something is gifting this great gold gathering of cloud;

a continual farewell.

The English Elms

Seven Sisters in Tottenham,

long gone, except for their names,

were English elms.

Others stood at the edge of farms,

twinned with the shapes of clouds

like green rhymes;

or cupped the beads of rain

in their leaf palms;

or glowered, grim giants, warning of storms.

In the hedgerows in old films,

elegiacally, they loom,

the English elms;

or find posthumous fame

in the lines of poems –

the music making elm –

for ours is a world without them …

to whom the artists came,

time upon time,

scumbling, paint on their fingers and thumbs;

and the woodcutters, who knew the elm

was a coffin’s deadly aim;

and the mavis, her filled nest unharmed

in the crook of a living, wooden arm;

and boys, with ball, bat, stumps

for a game;

and nursing ewes and lambs, calm

under English elms …

great, masterpiece trees

who were overwhelmed.

The Counties

But I want to write to an Essex girl,

greeting her warmly.

But I want to write to a Shropshire lad,

brave boy, home from the Army,

and I want to write to the Lincolnshire Poacher

to hear of his hare

and to an aunt in Bedfordshire

who makes a wooden hill of her stair.

But I want to post a rose to a Lancashire lass,

red, I’ll pick it,

and I want to write to a Middlesex mate

for tickets for cricket.

But I want to write to the Ayrshire cheesemaker

and his good cow

and it is my duty to write to The Queen at Berkshire

in praise of Slough.

But I want to write to the National Poet of Wales at Ceredigion

in celebration

and I want to write to the Dorset Giant

in admiration

and I want to write to a widow in Rutland

in commiseration

and to the Inland Revenue in Yorkshire

in desperation.

But I want to write to my uncle in Clackmannanshire

in his kilt

and to my scrumptious cousin in Somerset

with her cidery lilt.

But I want to write to two ladies in Denbighshire,

near Llangollen

and I want to write to a laddie in Lanarkshire,

Dear Lachlan …

But I want to write to the Cheshire Cat,

returning its smile.

But I want to write the names of the Counties down

for my own child

and may they never be lost to her …

all the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire …

The White Horses

The earth’s heart hears hooves

under hillsides,

thunder in Wiltshire;

and the glistening rain, in wet hours,

all ears for the white horses, listens;

the wind, hoarse, gargles

breath and whinny and shriek.

The moon’s chalk face pines for her foals.

But the sky swears

the white horses

are dropped clouds;