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Bell track
The track floats over a dark
world, swamp deep, peopled black
with blacker shades long past
knowing the work of worms.
It moves to its own slow song.
Do not forget you tread a ceiling here.
Go softly. Though the sun
beats white gold on reed and
grass, go quietly. You walk
as on a mirror here, float glass,
marking the meeting of the worlds.
You would not want to fall through.
If you pause, speak quietly.
If you twist dry grass as you walk,
finger work, twisted geometry,
do not take it with you.
Cast the dolly to the bog,
but do not watch it sink.
Pass on. You have no business here.
Cut ash afoot, live ash ahead,
waiting silent at the rise.
Golden grass to green leafed trees
living past, living here, living now,
remember as you greet them
their roots feed in the black beneath.
Remember, as the path turns to stone,
the isle itself, with its green ash grove
rests in turn on the deep black beneath.
Numinous once it is ordinary now.
A small shade green grove,
quiet, with an oak at its heart.
Birds sing and small beasts
live on bough and on moulded
ground their older brothers shunned.
You may feel a breeze. It was not
always so. The wind has not always
entered here, no storm was welcome.
The leaves rustled to a different gale.
July 5, 2000
Somerset
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