TACHOGRAPH

West, alongside running water, low gear climbing cinder tracks, around elbow-angles, dropping it down for the revs, driving the bends, taking the view from a passing-place. Over the brow of the first in the range, spot-height to the east, checked and named, through a cutting or pass, eyes to the front, four miles one-in-five downhill, test the brakes. West, sweet-going single track beside a silver-plated lake, metalled at last, slow up for the bridges, narrow gauge, breathe in, nearside and offside mirrors for whiskers, spare inches. West, fallen boulders, road closed unpassable out of season, five ptarmigan up ahead like tea cosies, hikers, ten miles to travel one, fjords—up to the armpit and out to the fingertip of each, back onto grit, window up, this year’s gravel sluiced by rain, pot-holes and pits, bedrock jiggered by frost, hard on the hands on the wheel, hard on the seat. West, half a junction coming up, good use of the map, good trig, incline to highest point, tightrope between two peaks, arête, pig-iron fence, head in the clouds, sweep down into arable land, common fields, fair going over level ground, front-wheel-drive with back end sliding around, shell out for diesel, last chance before Newfoundland. Still west along contour, following earthflow, downthrow, hanging valleys unjugging milk-like melt-water, into neutral with the slope, radio search for World Service, crank up the tape, foothills ahead, kettle-holes up to the hubs, survival shelter high to the left, new view, cover crops holding acres in place, the freight of ourselves carried in 00—scale over epic terrain, floodplain, bays and bights, essential minerals close at hand, noble metals, mantle on top, up and over banks of kame, intermittent rain, hardpan over there swept clean for the landing of planes, square miles of acid rock, homesteads under the bluff, last farm, last light before west, land-breeze picking up, relief, horizon at last of sea unbroken, ledge-road under the cliffs, headlights on dip, blue-vein lode in the stones, sunstruck at the coast, free-wheel down out of landscape numb with after-shock, end of the day, handbrake stop.

A GLORY

Right here you made an angel of yourself,

free-falling backwards into last night’s snow,

indenting a straight, neat, crucified shape,

then flapping your arms, one stroke, a great bird,

to leave the impression of wings. It worked.

Then you found your feet, sprang clear of the print

and the angel remained, fixed, countersunk,

open wide, hosting the whole of the sky.

Losing sleep because of it, I backtrack

to the place, out of earshot of the streets,

above the fetch and reach of the town.

The scene of the crime. Five-eighths of the moon.

On ground where snow has given up the ghost

it lies on its own, spread-eagled, embossed,

commending itself, star of its own cause.

Priceless thing—the faceless hood of the head,

grass making out through the scored spine, the wings

on the turn, becoming feathered, clipped.

Cattle would trample roughshod over it,

hikers might come with pebbles for the eyes,