Cross-Country Walk

China Clay Works; Cornwall, September 1983
First, we were in a forest:
light hung in cool green veils;
the branching singleness of trees
radiating from the heartwood,
each leaf a crimson tongue
burning into dearth.
On past fields, and the cottages
with steep roofs, low windows,
till we entered a plateau
heaped with pyramids of waste —
unearthed fathoms of granite
splintered and powdered
and bleached to this milky grey.
Nearby, anchored like
an artificial heart, the town
for the workers of clay,
all primary colours ghosted
by the same white-grey…
When dusk came, reverberating
its half-note, we had turned
to re-enter the intricate haze
of forest and field, to pass
the mare nibbling an invisible green,
the hum of flies in trees.
Later that night, you and I
strolled out to the stream's
rushing blackness and, heads level
with earth, drank the stars
till our necks ached and
we breathed slowly, slowly,
then walked back to the house
lit by diamond windows,
and the hearth filled with
tree shapes, pyramids, wings,
flickering, sighing, like some
small broken-off part of a star.