The Landscape Begins At Night


Prone clouds bottom
in valley floors
below me to make passing
odd unlevel seas.

A vapour eiderdown,
warm after-rain,
drifts as dreamers do, lost
in their bedding.

White-night germinates in
this long land’s nod,
like sleepers gradual in
gravitating to rest.

But the time-worn hollows
of this bed are
our ephemeral maps, where
yearn-landscapes form.

From which we of course wake
as if to pass through,
for more than mere stirs of teapot
in any gulf of hills.

In disdain agendas for any climate
curled at our step.
Only the plants, poets and animals
remain winter-stilled.

W.D.K. 10 June 2010