a yoghurt pot crushed in the muddy verge

black plastic rumpled by the field gate

a buzzard flaps, hunting, shaggy winged.

dull trees oppress.

and at the fields’ edges as I walk

I sense the shades of other quiet lives

there beneath the ashes and the oak

many dim figures soften into green.

interminable windings, little hills -

the road drones on to Sheepwash village where

the shop is closed - it’s Wednesday

so no soap.

many women must have walked this path

between the manor house and little church

it seems to me a sad and lonely route

betrothal, birth, baptism, a gentle death.

the angels’ wings are golden in the church

and in the graveyard I find a dead vole.

I lay him in the ivy secretly behind

somebody else’s graven stone.