There you were, all along,

in your house under the hill,

eking out time among stones

where moss fingers a wall

and narcissi come petal-fisted,

snub-nosed from the clay.

Daily you take a cloth

to your knick-knacks and things

on the mantelpiece, the windowsill,

where dust builds and builds,

time itself passing judgment.

There might be visitors, if onlyyou'd

hear them clamouring at your gate

with their letters of introduction,

if only you could hear all

the lamentation. The town in the crook

of the valley, you say, is a myth.

Nightly you watch the moon

roll like a pill on the cloud's tongue,

trees march in step with the earth.

You've tried the wood's mauve heart

and returned it, hollow as panic.

Below you at Lumb water falls

over the slabbed lip into a pool

black as a barrel of tar, tips its load

into the thousand cups and rings,

the goddess stamping her heel in stone.

You put your hand there until it numbs.

It is always almost spring and you are

watching, watching, your face

at the window a mask, the mouths

of the bee-houses struck dumb.