Abbotsbury Evening

Eype Mouth, Burton Freshwater, Burton Beach, Cogden Beach,
and yellow, yellow rape patches folded in soft hills which
kneel, golden and wrinkled, towards the speaking sea.

Then Chesil Beach and boots and blue pool surprising
the eye with its stillness - rhythm of gravel walk and waves,
an afternoon of intense heat and colours in the heart of silence.

Imagine a bride, wild with waiting for first night:
she throws handfuls of roses in hidden valleys
where they take root in the stone of houses.

That is Abbotsbury. She goes to pray
At St Nicolas's Abbey up on the hill and buries her past
in the hip of the cemetery which faces the Fleets

and she raises a thousand swans which now nest
and she turns her flock of lambs in the sunlight.
I walk over her body, dream-eyed.
...