A Berkshire Landscape

To move into a landscape one must stand

Still as a wall and somersault the mind,

Take the trout's view, the owl's wide-angled look

Or kestrel's telescopic lens, in one:

And be silent so that silence can

Mirror the sounds of which the air is full.

To see the landscape somehow we re-create

By adding time's dimension on to space.

We seek uniqueness in repeated things

And hear the raven croak a prophecy,

Or sense divinity in the dreaming swan

Pulling her cygnet barges down the stream.

Elderberry by the river's bank

Wears white rosettes to marshall summer in.

Beyond, where one tall poplar paints the sky,

The downs begin. Behind us in the field

Boxed cubes of hay, like giant dice, betray

The geometric eye and hand of man.

Trout nudge the water. Moorhens retreat

Into the fussing reeds: and high above

Swifts scythe their circles in the sky, deceive

Even the crows with their sham indolence.

The large-eyed night-jars, startled in the wood,

Trill frightened notes to bring the darkness on.

Afterwards, as in the adjusting of a tie

The mirror glimpses an unsuspected mood,

Words, such as these, may fleetingly suggest

In the visible and tentative green leaves

And package flight of migratory birds,

The element of wished-for permanence.