The shadow-partners of the clouds
slide across a rumpled landscape
pierced with spires; lakes form
silver splashes among the greens
of copse and pasture. In the hilltop breeze
butterflies dance above
the scabious and bugle.
Through it all, there runs
a trickling thread of lark-song.
Leaves and stems and roots tangle
and struggle for soil and light
and space to hoist their coloured lures,
to grow, seed, grow and seed.
In crushing darkness, a drizzle of silt
settles on an ocean bed.
These hills are ancient plankton
skeletons a hundred metres deep.
A drop of iron and magma
falls through space;
air eddies and swirls
around its patina of rock.
As a ripple rolls across the chalkland,
a lark sculls hard;
lungs, throat and tongue pulsating
to add texture to the flow.
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