Man of mystery, whose land have I lit on now?
Turning back the way from which you came
those twenty-odd years before,
acid-yellow sun skying up your back
as you struggle past miles of straw
sheared like spring sheep, champagne coats
letting show the bluing that marks each
as kin of whom. Once you were shunted
into such a flock, trained and aimed
at the horizon’s stain of steel
and ultramarine, myrtle stunted
under yew, the fortunes
of a thousand villages sunk
in a glaucous lake hard by acres
of ancient cane–mouldering, verdant–
guarding scapulae honeyed brighter
than an August noon. Today, you tack
as if the wind off that lake brimmed
a topmast royal, blowing you home
into time’s bare and shining bowl,
into the jade green grove
that grows inside your hope.
