Jon Silkin


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The ship's pasture

In the sun, the leaf, hesitant but active
this florescence of plain wood; with joy
I saw the fields of England, as new, chartered
shapes, bargained for, and so, snipped
with standing sheep, their snowy garments
by the limestone walls, bulbous fossils,
their thick inert forms braids dangling
the soft wealth of England: Selah. Except
some people here are brutal, the fist,
because of standing in the wrong place,
at the cheekbone. Fist, or snide
arrowy word.

I rose from England much refreshed, but returned
at evening; much undone that was once good
prior to this mean juncture. It was joy,
beside my self, to see the new fields. Whose
is this land that, like waiting flesh, turns
with a kiss, domestic, but yet is
a local habitation with no substance or name
sustaining it? It is a ship's pasture,
its interlinking husk submarine,
sea-spike, the sleeted fields of destruction:
for payment, for emolument. I am
a part of this—the bee, cutter of wood,
whose timbered house is unimaginably
hospitable. This is what it is. Northwards,
a new Jerusalem with the lamb lies separate,
its shade dense and lovely. The woman
starts again, as if each portion of this
were knit afresh.


[from The Ship's Pasture , 1986]