Writers Magazine 2008

CALLOW END

Cows, mist-drowned, merge with sheep
in this soft focus Malverns morning.
Powick church has shivered out of night.
The sun is a white-hot coin struck
in the mint of the sky, unquenchable
and incensed by vapour from the fields.
Nothing is not what it seems as the river floods
and water strains to wed itself to land.
The horizon shimmers like the inside of a forge
or quivering air around the after burner
of the low flying jet that sometimes scuds the hills.

Taking the bend, I see the village announce itself
in what seems to be a claim to wisdom;
the sign is bald - blocks of black on white.
But this isn't Italy. It doesn't warn with a red slash
that its limits have been reached. So, I sweep
beyond its parish pale, apparently boundless
but sensing the car break some meniscus
as it passes deep magnetic fields.

In this winter's wet and ice it's odd to think
the hedges hangar what will fledge and fly.
So, I signal, put my foot down and roll the car
over the camber to avoid the wash of what might
overtake me. A rear-view glance is all it takes
to show the whole reflected shrinking scene -
less substance than accident, and the open road ahead.