Downland Mists

Downland Mists

 

Sometimes on the downs, day is postponed,

and at the end of the barley-field, mist

melts into a sea of glumes. The vale

is an etching in glass, a glimpsed mosaic

of pale illuminations; there is no horizon,

or there are many. Old swathes are green

trails leading nowhere. The whole scene

might be sedimentary: a slow settling

of silts and silica beneath the glaze.

 

Time and space condense, precipitate;

earth, crops and air make a smoked pane

of faded layers - whites, beiges, greys.

Spaces yawn. My soul is formed of chalks,

clays and the failing breath of dawn.

 

Poem by Giles Watson, 2013.

Done