• Fiona Sampson

 

The March Lapwings 

 

Now everything

begins to move

and everything stays

where it is

every ash tree

every hummock

shifting inside

itself even

the grass shifts

and the electric

lapwings cry

change change

because the common

melts and flows

even the earth melts

and flows like melting

ice how lost

the eye the senses

are in this

disturbance rippling       

over the surface

of the common

here it comes

again the new

electric cry

change change

as it moves past us.

 

 

 

Coaley Peak

 

Who by night

goes secretly

up the long-

shadowed field

where trees wait

burdened with shadows

or nothing waits

 

who sets each foot

into the moonlight

washing down

the long field

going alone

up footpaths changed

by night into night

who raises a face

blank as a moon

above the deep

steepy woods

above the shadowed

valleys where

the bright Peak hangs.