The Mosses
There is the grille-grid map of new cities
and then there is the squint-skew matrix
of the Mosses’ angled lattice-paths.
Walker! Footfall each one
for they are all different
beneath foxy sameness
of tussocky groove, peaty scar
and tough-fibre grass-reed.
Your world soon becomes
a world away from you out here
amongst whisky-kissed waters,
single malted cold-tea pools
from yesterday’s stained pot.
Life teems around you,
more sensed than seen
in such flat expanse of vista,
where horizon-trees mock
the eye’s careful calculation.
You will get to know landmarks,
dyked and decaying remnants
of human busyness for digging,
for burning, for trading, for fighting.
But now this place wishes wildness,
desires to defend its treasures
with quaggy ditch, scabbed birch
and brashy-bound trench-trough.
Skirt the Mosses’ canal gutter,
hard-tramp old rail tracks,
all the while envying the birds –
for the channels of the air are clear
of swamp-sedge, of muskeg-mire.
Here, bird sounds are light as bog-cotton
whilst your straw-tangled tread
is sphagnum-heavy, cacao-fibre-cleated.
Here you can lose your bearings,
all that unasked shoulder-weight.
Here you can find your better bearings.
Ted Eames, 2021