Rustle-hush      grass and rushes,

            marsh-sharp fescue,      thorn and willow,

                        muffled wind and drum

                                    of wind,      black flame

of black water      where the reed-stems

            and leek-skin bullrush  rot

                        under Northeye  and castle-eye:

                                    a straightened river,       a cultured river,

an intervention of ditches

            and the wind shines them: golden skeletons

                        of grassheads

                                    with the green stars of pondweed,

starting, and blades of plantain, starting,

            and wind glints the pitted mud

                        where the wet worm, rust-sheen

                                    and ferrous oil leak

and a milk coils …

            Under the winter      like saltwater,

                        a flood of grasses – rye and foxtail –

                                    are quiet as relics,

as the rare spider,

            the sinistral snail, bright Aenigma,

                        and the dormancy of the wind

                                    drains

from a quiet rush of shining,      drains

            into drum, again, of wind, dry rain of wind,

                        ear-full wind, muffled wind,

                                    bawling wind intensively

rushing, then falling      back –

            rustle-hush –

                        and the black water

                                      quivers, the worm-burrowed clay

ticks:    the mud breathes in

            And where does the dormancy

                        hide?      in the breath,

                                       in the drowned root?

 

 

 

 

Pevensey Levels, Winter

Or, where does the dormancy hide

 

Jemma Borg