Trekking the fields studying
the grass and
sleeping in hedgerows waking
in the night to test your
knowledge of the constellations
and Orion tracks from south to west
and this pleases you although the
night chills can challenge the blanket of
recycled magazines and news rags
and old clothes daringly taken from
the Salvation Army’s recycling skip
and foxes run and stouts scamper
and geese call and ducks quack
and cows bay and horses neigh
and moles
are new friends
and you go through a Ted Hughes moment
you stare at trees and see the myriad
of life forms in the bark
with Hughsian drama you imagine
stalking rain horses
although only truly find
staring sheep
and the sky is cast with ***** cumulus
the track is covered in broken stone
and smashed bottles
cans and plastic packets poke out of bushes
old refrigerators scar the edgeland
watertight but
dangerous places to sleep
as you skirt the town a refugee
before your time
perhaps timeless
in the everlasting now of
rural vagrancy king of
the farm track and
the dog walker trails of
muddy puddles and scrappy corn
burnt out tree
rusted household appliances
random pieces of clothing
a focus point for camp fire drinking
gather up the splintered kindling
rip up the news on already damaged paper
laugh with a deep throated abandon at
the chaos in the world charted there
and watch the stars feeling captured by
the night
but still very much
alive