Opened Ground Part 2

Unexpectedly, his bicycle slung With a light ladder and a bag of knives.

He eyed the old rigging, poked at the eaves, Opened and handled sheaves of lashed wheat-straw.

Next, the bundled rods: hazel and willow Were flicked for weight, twisted in case they'd snap.

It seemed he spent the morning warming up: Then fixed the ladder, laid out well-honed blades And snipped at straw and sharpened ends of rods That, bent in two, made a white-p.r.o.nged staple For pinning down his world, handful by handful.

Couchant for days on sods above the rafters, He shaved and flushed the b.u.t.ts, st.i.tched all together Into a sloped honeycomb, a stubble patch, And left them gaping at his Midas touch.

The Peninsula

When you have nothing more to say, just drive

For a day all round the peninsula.

The sky is tall as over a runway, The land without marks, so you will not arrive But pa.s.s through, though always skirting landfall.

At dusk, horizons drink down sea and hill, The ploughed field swallows the whitewashed gable And you're in the dark again. Now recall The glazed foresh.o.r.e and silhouetted log, That rock where breakers shredded into rags, The leggy birds stilted on their own legs, Islands riding themselves out into the fog, And drive back home, still with nothing to say Except that now you will uncode all landscapes By this: things founded clean on their own shapes, Water and ground in their extremity.

Requiem for the Croppies

The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley

No kitchens on the run, no striking camp We moved quick and sudden in our own country.

The priest lay behind ditches with the tramp.

A people, hardly marching on the hike We found new tactics happening each day: We'd cut through reins and rider with the pike And stampede cattle into infantry, Then retreat through hedges where cavalry must be thrown.

Until, on Vinegar Hill, the fatal conclave.

Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon.

The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave.

They buried us without shroud or coffin And in August the barley grew up out of the grave.

Undine

He slashed the briars, shovelled up grey silt

To give me right-of-way in my own drains And I ran quick for him, cleaned out my rust.

He halted, saw me finally disrobed, Running clear, with apparent unconcern.

Then he walked by me. I rippled and I churned Where ditches intersected near the river Until he dug a spade deep in my flank And took me to him. I swallowed his trench Gratefully, dispersing myself for love Down in his roots, climbing his bra.s.sy grain But once he knew my welcome, I alone Could give him subtle increase and reflection.

He explored me so completely, each limb Lost its cold freedom. Human, warmed to him.

The Wife's Tale

When I had spread it all on linen cloth

Under the hedge, I called them over.

The hum and gulp of the thresher ran down And the big belt slewed to a standstill, straw Hanging undelivered in the jaws.

There was such quiet that I heard their boots Crunching the stubble twenty yards away.

He lay down and said, 'Give these fellows theirs, I'm in no hurry,' plucking gra.s.s in handfuls And tossing it in the air. 'That looks well.'

(He nodded at my white cloth on the gra.s.s.) 'I declare a woman could lay out a field Though boys like us have little call for cloths.'

He winked, then watched me as I poured a cup And b.u.t.tered the thick slices that he likes.

'It's threshing better than I thought, and mind It's good clean seed. Away over there and look.'

Always this inspection has to be made Even when I don't know what to look for.

But I ran my hand in the half-filled bags Hooked to the slots. It was hard as shot, Innumerable and cool. The bags gaped Where the chutes ran back to the stilled drum And forks were stuck at angles in the ground As javelins might mark lost battlefields.

I moved between them back across the stubble.

They lay in the ring of their own crusts and dregs, Smoking and saying nothing. 'There's good yield, Isn't there?' as proud as if he were the land itself 'Enough for crushing and for sowing both.'

And that was it. I'd come and he had shown me, So I belonged no further to the work.

I gathered cups and folded up the cloth And went. But they still kept their ease, Spread out, unb.u.t.toned, grateful, under the trees.

Night Drive

The smells of ordinariness

Were new on the night drive through France: Rain and hay and woods on the air Made warm draughts in the open car.

Signposts whitened relentlessly.

Montreuil, Abbeville, Beauvais Were promised, promised, came and went, Each place granting its name's fulfilment.

A combine groaning its way late Bled seeds across its work-light.

A forest fire smouldered out.

One by one small cafes shut.

I thought of you continuously A thousand miles south where Italy Laid its loin to France on the darkened sphere.

Your ordinariness was renewed there.

Relic of Memory

The lough waters

Can petrify wood: Old oars and posts Over the years Harden their grain, Incarcerate ghosts Of sap and season.

The shallows lap And give and take: Constant ablutions, Such drowning love Stun a stake To stalagmite.

Dead lava, The cooling star, Coal and diamond Or sudden birth Of burnt meteor Are too simple, Without the lure That relic stored A piece of stone On the shelf at school, Oatmeal coloured.

A Lough Neagh Sequence for the fishermen

1 UP THE Sh.o.r.e.

I.

The lough will claim a victim every year.

It has virtue that hardens wood to stone.

There is a town sunk beneath its water.

It is the scar left by the Isle of Man.

II.

At Toomebridge where it sluices towards the sea They've set new gates and tanks against the flow.

From time to time they break the eels' journey And lift five hundred stone in one go.

III.

But up the sh.o.r.e in Antrim and Tyrone There is a sense of fair play in the game.

The fishermen confront them one by one And sail miles out, and never learn to swim.