(no subject)

[thehornedgod]

XVII

Tri-towers, Christ-silos, rise from, retract
into, the broad Ouse levels. Roadside poppies,
hedged bindweed, still beautiful. The kempt fields
basking; intense the murmur of full summer,
more growl than murmur: coast-traffic snarled,
snarling. Hawks over the dual carriageways.
I've jolted from northwards across the moors,
not entirely at peace. Memoranda for horizons
in travail - spirit-levels - steadiness
of outlook all too readily measured.
Broadly, I have the measure of myself,
mechanically at bay. I'd not resurrect
Goldengrove, other than as a grove in Syon:
sustainable anomaly, so I
can tell you, though too easily said.
Tommies' lore, re crucifixes and the like;
Tennyson's wild expenditure of bells;
suffering - Gurney's - his queer
politics; Owen transfixed by eros:
my difficulties are not with their
forever-earnest speech. The chorus
lines of road-rage shunt to yet more delay.
Masked somewhere, on one side or the other,
the time-struck Minster doles greed by the clock.

Geoffrey Hill, from Orchards of Syon